250 homes planned for Monroe County. Find out where and for how much.

A local developer plans to build 250 homes on the west side of Ellettsville.

Chris Smith, an Ellettsville native, real estate broker and land developer, plans to buy 115 acres southeast of KeHE and south of Lifeview Baptist Church along Ind. 46 for a project that would include businesses and housing.

Smith said the homes at the low end would start at $200,000 for townhomes and range to $600,000 for single-family homes. Smith said he envisions the development to also include commercial spaces for a grocery store, coffee shop, office space and other uses.

The Ellettsville Plan Commission will discuss a rezoning of the property at 6 p.m. Thursday at the town hall. The public will have an opportunity to comment on the plans. The property is zoned for agricultural use.

Ellettsville’s town manager and a town council member said they were generally supportive of the project, primarily because it would broaden the town’s tax base and would bring much-needed housing.

Ellettsville Town Manager Mike Farmer said some of the demand for housing in Ellettsville is a result of high property prices in Bloomington and rural parts of Monroe County.

“With restrictive land use policies in the county and with the complexity of the city of Bloomington and how it’s growing … a lot of people want to live in Ellettsville,” he said.

Many new housing projects are occupied as soon as they’re completed, Farmer said.

Smith said, “Ellettsville is the most amicable jurisdiction to build in right now. They want new housing construction.”

He said he hopes the homes will be occupied by government workers, teachers and employees from large employers, including Cook and Baxter.

Ellettsville Town Board member William Ellis said he thinks the project would be great for the town, in part because of the additional businesses.

"More commercial growth will help us stabilize our taxes for existing residential properties," he said via email.

Smith said that if everything goes as planned the first homes could be ready for move-in in fall of 2024, though spring of 2025 is more likely. In total, he expects the project to take about a decade.

People would enter the property via a yet-to-be-built north-south road that would turn off Ind. 46, preferably with a signalized intersection, Smith said. The north-south road would be fronted by businesses, with residential lots behind them.

Smith said he also is working with the town to have a fire station on the property. His plans also include multipurpose paths and road connections to the Boys and Girls Club and to extend Sycamore Drive to Ind. 46, which, Smith and Farmer said, would provide another connection to nearby Edgewood schools and would reduce congestion and increase safety.

Smith said he had initially planned a simpler development, but Ellettsville officials inspired him to expand the project’s scope because of their work on Envision Ellettsville, an initiative “to create a clear identity and long-term vision for our community,” according to the website.

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Mick Harman, who co-owns the property with his sister, Julia Miller, said the family has owned the land since 1957 and while it used to accommodate livestock including cows and pigs, it is used today primarily as a horse pasture.

Harman said his father sold part of the land in the 1970s to the Lifeview Baptist Church, along Ind. 46.

Ellettsville Planning Director Denise Line said after the plan commission considers the rezoning on Thursday, the town board is scheduled to take up the matter at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 11.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Monroe County developer plans 250-unit housing project. Find out more.