Local developer Joe Koppeis attended Thursday’s Columbia School Board meeting to present information about a possible future building development in Columbia Lakes.

In 2011, both the city council and school board heard multiple presentations and discussions about the development of more than 200 living units in the neighborhood, which were proposed to be multi-family. That plan eventually fell through.

Koppeis approached the board with a new plan to build approximately 45 single-family homes, which he said would be making “the best out of a bad situation.”

“We would like to not have all those apartments built at Columbia Lakes,” he said.

A St. Louis bank foreclosed on the property years ago. Currently zoned multi-family, it is being marketed as such.

Koppeis is asking the taxing districts in Columbia (city, school district) to approve a “special services area” that would put a tax on those lots to help defray the costs of installing infrastructure for the building of these single-family homes.

“We’re telling the local builders that they have to take the lots over a three-year period, and whether they build a house on it or not, the taxes would start,” Koppeis said. “The bonds would get paid off. The schedule I ran shows them paying off in 12 years. The number is $1.6 million, and they (the bonds) will be paid off when that $1.6 million in taxes is raised off these lots.”

Koppeis will present his conceptual plan to the Columbia City Council during a committee meeting set for 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall.