The second of six phases in platting an upscale housing development around Sundown Lake was approved Monday by the Appanoose County Board of supervisors.
Fritz Balsley, director of acquisition and production for SLC (secluded land company), said his company plans to divide Sundown Lake into approximately 300 lots, in most sizes ranging from three to 165 acres.

Balsley told the board that sales have been brisk, with 18 of the 22 lots in Phase One already sold, and eight pre-sold for the area in Phase Two.
Most of the buyers are from the Des Moines, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids areas, with others from Wisconsin and Illinois.

Lakefront lots range in price from $70,000 to $250,000, with back lots selling from $25,000 to $50,000. He said most of the homes built on the lake will range from $100,000 to $500,000.

Supervisors meetings where Phase One was discussed and then approved saw a number of disgruntled current Sundown Lake property owners. They purchased their lots from former lake developers or for back taxes. They accused SLC of using heavy-handed tactics to get them to sell at the original prices.

The lots were sold by a past development company that went bankrupt, Balsley said, and the properties have no access to the roads being plotted by SLC. He told board members the only access to those parcels would be by helicopter or parachute. It is possible that those sales were fraudulent, he said earlier in the year, but added that the company is no longer in existence. There were 11 of those stranded lots remaining in May.

At that time, Balsley said the company that sold the lake property to SLC, Triple S, had already bought back several lots that had houses on them - which was part of the purchase agreement. Balsley told board members in April that if SLC cannot buy back some remaining landlocked lots, it would fence around the property so prospective customers would know from the start that the small, one-third acre bits are not included in future sales.

During Monday's meeting, Balsley said his firm has yet to come to an agreement with the handful of lot owners, but their attorneys were working on it and hoped to address the issue in the approval of Phase Six, some time at the end of 2006 or beginning of 2007. Balsley described their typical customer as someone living in a metropolitan area looking for an escape from the crowded urban landscape. They usually buy such property for a second home, but with the intent to ultimately retire there. "They don't want that martin house environment," he said.

A webpage for SLC says that the "company's primary purpose is the marketing of natural waterfront properties and secluded wooded acreage located primarily in unspoiled areas of the Midwest and elsewhere within the United States." The total development is 2,800 acres in size, with 400 acres of that covered by the lake.