Politics & Government
Villas at Ridgepointe Development Issue Still Unresolved
Lake St. Louis residents asked the Kemp Homes Company to make more changes to their development plan during Monday night's board of aldermen meeting.
During a public hearing at Monday night’s Lake St. Louis board of aldermen meeting, residents told the board they were still not happy with the Kemp Homes Company proposed development plan for the Villas at Ridgepointe, an unfinished subdivision south of Lake Saint Louis Boulevard, and east of S. Henke Road.
In March, Kemp Homes asked the city to amend the original development plan to allow the construction of single-family homes on empty lots in the unfinished subdivision. Some of the single-family homes would be built next or in front of the attached villas that are already there.
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In spite of some changes to the original proposal, representatives from Kemp Homes and current residents of the villas were still squabbling about the nature of the project.
Bill Kemp, owner of Kemp Homes, said that although the original intention of the development was to build an attached-villas community, the economy and market research suggests the attached villas would be hard to sell. Kemp said because of this the company decided to develop single-family homes there, some which are two-stories high.
Residents who currently live in the villas, however, said that when they originally moved there they were sold on the idea the subdivision would be a place for a senior community. They said single-family and two-story homes would create a different atmosphere.
“Now, they did not tell us this would be a senior community, or that there was an age limit or there were no children,” said Pat Vanthull, resident at the villas. “But they did hand us brochures of ladies with white hair and men with no hair. So we kind of got that impression...we wanted to be with people of our own age group.”
The board gave a first reading to the resolution that would approve the amendment, however, the city attorney still needs to review the proposal’s indentures. The proposal has already been approved by the city’s community development, the board will decide the fate of the development on a second reading of the bill at their next meeting on June fourth.