CRESTON — At its monthly meeting Wednesday, the Creston Village Board of Trustees heard a presentation from Tim Hayden of Hayden Real Estate on progress regarding the building of new homes that has been taking place in the Creston Commons subdivision.

Hayden provided trustees with information on plans for new home locations along with navigating and fixing water service issues for the new homes. Seven new home permits were recently submitted for the subdivision, six of which will be built by Hayden. Two of the lots have been sold to other private owners. 

Hayden said a total of 14 building permits have been issued since subdivision building work has started. Five homes are currently being built. The new homes have been sized around 1,600 square feet and are priced between $300,000-315,000. 

"We are not only building, but we are thankfully having a little success in sales and pre-sales," Hayden said. "I would say everything is going well for the most part. We've had a little bit of interest from Creston, a little bit of interest from the area, and a little bit of interest from outside the area. It's all ages. We're not overrunning the school, but we're seeing a little bit of family interest."

Hayden Real Estate closed on the ownership of the subdivision at the end of December 2023. The village has hoped in recent years to see clean up, new homes and a new agreement with the subdivision's ownership.

"I think everybody here is really happy with what's going on out there," Byro said. "It's nice to see something finally going on out there. Hopefully people are buying these houses."

Hayden said boring work has been done for water services to new homes and more of that work is planned. Work will also soon be done on parks in the area, including fencing for a potential dog park, a Jack Kerns Community Garden, playgrounds, and trees and landscaping, Hayden said. 

Library

Village officials said Wednesday that the new Creston-Dement Public Library is now open and a grand opening will be held Saturday, May 10. Village Building Inspector Aaron Moore said during the meeting that he recently did a final inspection of the building and provided feedback on small items and would be going back for a final reinspection on Friday.

The project broke ground March 15 at the corner of Main and Cederholm Streets. A referendum passed in June 2022 that allowed the Creston-Dement Public Library District to issue $2.2 million in bonds to build a new library building on the land that was donated years ago for just that purpose. The main reason for the desire for a new building is the library outgrowing its current space at 107 S. Main St.

Storm sewer

Village Building Inspector Kevin Bunge said during the meeting that Creston will likely approve a bid for a planned storm sewer project in Creston at its May meeting. 

The project will consist of 36-inch storm sewer pipe being put in to replace broken drain tile and improve drainage in Creston. The storm sewer work will consist of adding pipe on both sides of the railroad tracks, but the current phase of it will not go under the tracks. The work was suggested due to issues with stormwater overflow.

The work will likely begin in the late spring or summer of 2025. Bunge has estimated in the past that the project could roughly cost $180,000-200,000. The project would take around six weeks. 

The preliminary storm sewer project work involved securing easements from property owners in the area of it.

Water issues

Bunge provided an update during the meeting on a project that will see Creston's water tower cleaned and inspected in an effort to try to alleviate rust issues in the village. Bunge said that after it was originally expected that the project would be started as soon as weather allowed, the contractor recently provided a start date of Aug. 20. 

Bunge said he'd be going back to the contractor to attempt to get the project started as soon as possible. Back in December, the board unanimously approved a proposal from KLM Engineering for $16,836 to complete the work by July 1.

In other efforts to alleviate rust issues in Creston's water, the village recently had some locating work done on water service lines near homes that have seen rust issues to find each of them and their source.

Bunge said all service lines were located with the exception of two and he would soon be doing analysis work to determine what work the village should do to improve its system to alleviate rust issues. 

Bunge recently created a map showing areas seeing the worst rust issues in Creston, and he said he believes those areas coincide with bellies, low spots and old four-inch water mains in the village's water system.

Election

Village officials discussed unofficial results of the April 1 Consolidated Election that took place Tuesday. Byro (84 votes) and Village Clerk Jennifer Payton (82 votes) ran unopposed for reelection Tuesday. For two four-year terms on the board of trustees, Justin Hibshman (64 votes) and Curt Ward (42 votes) ran unopposed Tuesday with the possible exception of a write-in candidate that could be tallied and determined later on. Hibshman would be new to the board. Incumbent Greg Hopkins (85 votes) ran unopposed Tuesday for a two-year term on the board as well.