Cross Creek Estates appeals to high-income residents
Roberto M. Esquivel|蘑菇视频
This is one of the houses in the Cross Creek Estates development in South Union Township.
Roberto M. Esquivel|Herald-Stand
Cross Creek Estates is being built in South Union Township to satisfy a need for housing for high-income residents.
According to a local economic development group, higher end housing has been scarce in Fayette County.
Chip Ciarrocchi, a third-generation builder, has been working to change that.
His most recent endeavor is Cross Creek Estates in South Union Township.
It features single family homes and villas aimed at filling the need for higher end housing that Fay-Penn Economic Development Council officials have been stressing for several years.
In one respect, Ciarrocchi is responding to a housing market analysis done for the Fayette County Housing Consortium in 2007.
The survey showed there is and will be a need for higher income housing to accommodate more white-collar job growth in the county.
Homes start at about $225,000 at Cross Creek, one of three developments Ciarrocchi has built during his 40 years in the home construction business.
鈥淲e wanted to do a combined community that took in duplexes, which we call villas or carriage houses. We wanted to do a combination of villas and single family homes in an upscale environment.
鈥淚t takes the vision to see what the area can be and we always did find there was a need for quality construction. We felt that other areas in southwestern Pennsylvania had a mixed plan with regard to the combination of villas, which are smaller than regular homes and single family homes all in one plan.
鈥淚t takes a lot of money, too. We have to have the financing and a master plan of how it is going to evolve. So we go to the bank with the plan and get it properly financed,鈥� he added.
Ciarrocchi said having the experience of three successful subdivisions in his portfolio makes financing easier.
鈥淲e have a track record,鈥� he said.
鈥淲e have 50 families in Cross Creek so far. We have 18 villas and the rest are single family homes,鈥� he said.
The development is surrounded by 38 acres, most of it wooded, creating a sylvan setting for living.
In development for 14 years, the last nine of which have seen the creation of the dwellings, Cross Creek Estates, Ciarrocchi said, 鈥渋s set up for 75 families total.
鈥淲e do a combination of building houses and selling them and we also will build for a client a house to suit them.
鈥淚 subscribe to various (home) plan services. Some of the homes we have designed for Cross Creek. Some of the designs I purchase from area plan services. All of our houses and villas are built from ground up,鈥� he said.
Once financing is in place, Ciarrocchi said, 鈥渨e do all the planning for the infrastructure and put it in. We had three phases for developing Cross Creek Estates. We are currently in phase three,鈥� he said.
鈥淭he other concept of Cross Creek (in addition to providing quality housing) is that it is a planned unit development. Those villas are not townhouses or condos but are units in the planned development.
鈥淏efore we build, we have to get approvals from the DEP (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection), South Union Township (where Cross Creek is located) and the water conservation district.
He explained the approval from DEP is for sanitary sewers and so forth.
鈥淭he township guidelines we follow are for all setbacks, square footage for lots, etc. The other thing we had to do before we broke ground at Cross Creek was we had to get a special exception to zoning for the villas. I had to achieve that before I moved on.鈥�
All of the homes and villas come unfurnished. There is a Cross Creek homeowners association.
鈥淲e have a homeowner association that everyone belongs to, even single family lots. There are certain restrictions and covenants and the association provides services for the villas. In particular, grass cutting, maintenance, snow removal, year-round care,鈥� he said.
Ciarrocchi is president of J&C Builders in Uniontown.