Village OKs duplex condo zoning

The Fredonia Village Board recently approved new zoning rules to allow for the construction of duplex condominiums, a necessary step toward advancing the proposed Hillcrest Builders’s development on the village’s north side.

The ordinance creates a two-unit condominium residential district “intended to provide a pleasant, safe and quiet neighborhood free from public annoyances for two-family residential dwelling.”

Hillcrest Builders has proposed building about 100 homes on about 40 acres north and west of the Northern Ozaukee School District campus.

Details of the proposed development have not been approved, but the developer has estimated that about 20 of the units would be duplex condominiums.

The condominiums may be one of the first units built in the project after a failed financing proposal that called for the village to essentially be the developer’s banker, borrowing money to pay for infrastructure upgrades and be paid back by Hillcrest as lots and homes were sold.

Village officials backed away from that idea after they found it would push them too close to their legally allowable debt limit.

Hillcrest owner Oyvind Solvang has since said the village’s decision did not kill the deal, and that he expects to move forward by presenting plans to the village this spring.