Georgetown City Council directed city staff to work with developers to move forward with an expansion proposal of the Woodside Municipal Utility District near Sun City, which would add about 496 age-restricted units to the area.
If the proposal is ultimately approved, this tract of land would be brought into the city limits.
When the project was initially presented in early June, council expressed some concerns about the increase in age-restricted housing units across the 162.5 acres. Ultimately, council members showed support because of the project’s proximity to Sun City, another age-restricted, master-planned community.
Georgetown MUD policies put a 10 percent cap on age-restricted housing for a single project. This project would exceed that cap with about 60 percent age-restricted units.
“I think it’s worth looking at the pros and the cons,” Council Member Amanda Parr said. “I still have the same concerns overall with age-restricted communities in our community, because I think we need to be sure that we have a diverse housing product. However, I think with this particular property and its contiguous nature to our existing Sun City, which is a valuable asset in our community, I do support moving forward with this project.”
In the Woodside expansion, 78 home lots will be 42’ x 125’, 296 homes will be 52’ x 125’ and 132 homes will be 67’ x 125’.
After receiving feedback from council in June, some changes were made to the plan:
- A commercial development was added to the eastern part of the property bordering State Highway 195
- A roundabout was added into the primary community entrance
- The amenity center property was increased by two acres
The community’s Sun City-style amenity center would be a 10,500-squarefoot building on 7.4 acres, with a resort style pool, bocce courts, a dog park and event lot.
Additionally, a mile-long,18 inch waterline will be built by the developer along State Highway 195 to accommodate the new houses.
If the developer is not granted final city council approval for the addition, Amy Payne, with developer Blake Macgee, said they would not continue to pursue it based on the current traditional housing market.
“Because of the [housing] market here, we wouldn’t do this as a traditional single-family product. We would not move forward with that if it’s not a Sun City product,” Ms. Payne said.
Currently, Sun City has 9,700 homes with a build out of 10,500 homes. The addition of the newly proposed age-restricted units would bring the total in the area to about 11,000 homes.
“Today there are 16,600 residents living in Sun City, which represents about 15 percent of the total population of the City of Georgetown, which I think is a pretty substantial piece of the pie,” said Ryan Mikulenka, director of land planning and entitlement with Pulte Group, Sun City’s developer.
Breaking down housing sales in Woodside
Ms. Payne said lots in the Woodside MUD have been selling for a little over a year.
“We delivered on the first phase on our west side, which is our Woodside Sun City with over 100 lots, and then our east side which is our traditional product with over 100 lots as well,” she said.
In the traditional homes, about 1.7 houses a month for an average price of $450,000 have been sold versus the Sun City product, which sells about 15.6 houses a month for about $700,000.
“One of the things we really wanted to highlight of why we’re bringing this project to you as an active adult Sun City project is because of the absorption that we’re seeing. We’re just not seeing the absorption in the traditional housing market,” Ms. Payne said.
The traditional Woodside homes and Sun City homes are similar, but the amenities and the Sun City name is what is increasing the sales value on the homes, Ms. Payne added.
Despite the amount of houses sold and the amenity centers in Sun City that put the houses at a higher price point, Ms. Parr said future developments might not get the same flexibility on the amount of age-restricted housing units.
“I would still hesitate for future developments that aren’t contiguous with Sun City, that we would allow age restricted [housing] outside of the MUD policy,” she said.
The MUD will come to city council for final approval at a later date.