Rezoning for a 229-lot, 80-acre subdivision is heading to the Portage City Council for approval after months of revisions to the plan.

Lennar Homes of Indiana is planning to build Swanson Trails at the northwest corner of County Road 700 North and Swanson Road.

The home prices will start at $350,000 to $420,000, depending on size and furnishings.

Todd Kleven, vice president of land acquisition for Lennar, told the Plan Commission Tuesday that plans call for Swanson Trails to have its own park. A fitness court is planned as a result of excitement about the city’s first one at the corner of Airport and Lute roads.

The Plan Commission gave the development a favorable recommendation. The council meets Tuesday night.

Swanson Trails would be developed as a planned unit development, meaning the zoning would be customized for that subdivision only.

Attorney Todd Leeth, representing Lennar Homes of Indiana, walked the commission through the current plan.

“We’re not presenting anything but 229 single lots for single-family homes,” he said. “Those homes are much narrower than your ordinance allows.”

Instead of lots 80 feet wide, Lennar is proposing lots 50 and 63 feet wide.

“Lennar is one of the largest home builders in the nation. They know what they’re doing. They know what their customers want, and their customers want lower-maintenance homes. They don’t want one-third of an acre, one-quarter of an acre; they want smaller homes,” Leeth said.

“But they want the amenities. They want that park. They want those open spaces. They want those walking trails. Those are the things that buyers, according to Lennar want,” he said.

“Everybody’s going to see the same thing that they would see elsewhere except it’s going to be much greener because of the tree preservation,” Leeth said. “What you’re seeing in this ordinance, in that concept plan, it didn’t start that way. We’ve had now six previous iterations, so we’ve been working with staff. The first one was in March, then we went a long way, but it was August, September, October, November, December. Every month, it changed because staff wanted something different.”

The last change came after a Dec. 2 meeting, to preserve more trees, he said.

Mayor Austin Bonta spoke in favor of the plan.

At the Plan Commission’s December meeting, about 30 people showed up for a public hearing but it was postponed because Lennar was revising the plan again. Bonta invited those residents to meet with him to hear their concerns. Leeth also showed up.

“There were three essentially different types of people present at the meeting upstairs in my office,” Bonta said. “One was a group of people who don’t want any homes built on this land. Then there were people who were OK with homes being built on this land, but they wanted to make sure that they were of the same value, quality as the homes in their neighborhood across the street in Arvilla Acres or in Brookview. And then the third group of people were people who were concerned about the trees and the woods.”

“We know the market in Northwest Indiana. Someone is going to buy this land, and it’s going to be someone who will have the ability to say, I’m going to build an R2 neighborhood to what the code allows me to build, and there’s really nothing we can do to stop it,” Bonta said.

Lennar saved most of the trees and is planning a trail system to enjoy them. It’s building quality homes, too, he said.

“When I came in as mayor, I think it was very known that I came in very critical of residential growth and with the determination to not just say yes to everything,” Bonta said. “We’ve had some developers who I told them point blank what we expect to see in Portage, and some of them just walk away. When a developer doesn’t walk away and they work with the city, I think it’s worth noting.”

When the subdivision is fully built out, which Kleven expects to happen in about four years, the homes would generate about $1 million in additional property taxes, he said.

Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.