It’s still small-town Iowa, just a bit more upscale.

Depending on which of the new residential developments you choose, many of Norwalk’s newest neighborhoods tout golf greens for back yards, half-acre lots and custom homes.

“Each one of these development has its own identity,” said Bill Ludwig, a principal of William J. Ludwig and Associates Ltd., an urban planning firm that helped design a 10-year blueprint for residential and commercial development in and around Norwalk.

Nearly three years after developers announced this “billion-dollar” vision for Norwalk, about 25 percent of the planned development has now been completed, Ludwig said, and the pace of construction has begun to accelerate. The planned developments will eventually fill in much of the undeveloped land between Norwalk and Des Moines, as well as push residential development west to Interstate 35.

“It’s actually a little ahead of schedule, which you could expect because it’s an evolving activity,” Ludwig said. The new neighborhoods, which include The Ridge at Echo Valley, The Legacy Golf Course Community and Orchard Hills, have already added $62.5 million in taxable value on Norwalk’s property tax rolls within the past two years, the majority of it in residential value.

At the same time, a tax abatement program enacted by the city has jump-started new residential construction activity.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the tax abatement program has increased development considerably,” said Dean Yordi, Norwalk’s community development director. “We implemented it three years ago, and we have increased single family housing starts from 30 homes a year to 124 last year, and I’m projecting 150 this year.”

The city is now in the process of reviewing four additional subdivisions, two at Legacy and two at Orchard Hills, which collectively would add approximately 200 more lots to the inventory of land to be developed for housing, he said.

“Three years ago, we had a shortage of lots,” Yordi said, noting that 300 lots were subsequently added in 2003. “If we continue to add about 200 a year, we’ll have that inventory ready to go. The lots are there now, and that’s one of the things we didn’t have before.”

To get the maximum value from the tax abatement, which provides 100 percent abatement on the first 30 percent in the increase in assessed value of the developed property, a house must be at least $250,000 in value, Yordi said. For many of the houses under construction, that won’t be a difficult figure to reach.

Orchard Hills, which has now sold about 80 percent of its available lots, features homes that are selling for between about $260,000 and $330,000, Ludwig said. Another subdivision, Orchard Ridge, has sold about half of its 30 lots.

Builder inquiries have been strong enough that Schlegel Investment Co., developer of Orchard Hills, has decided to begin development of 38 “courtyard homes” in an area that will be known as Orchard Trail this year.

“That one will be starting in April, with delivery of lots sometime in June,” Ludwig said. “That would be about six to eight months ahead of schedule.”

To the north, Echo Valley recently opened up its first subdivision, consisting of 36 lots that are a minimum half-acre each.

“I would say these are the largest lots in the metro area, (including) West Des Moines, Clive, any of the suburbs,” Ludwig said.

Developer Michael Coppola said Echo Valley’s first subdivision has nearly sold out, and that about 15 houses are now under construction. About five contractors on a preferred contractor list are building 90 percent of the houses, he said.

“We have high demand across the board,” Coppola said. “The beauty of this is that 25 out of 30 are custom homes. These are homes people are going to live in the rest of their lives. They’re build-to-orders; they’re people building their dream house.”

With 1,000 acres of land to develop, Echo Valley will provide an opportunity to build a variety of housing in a range of prices, Coppola said.

“We’re going to do some higher-density residential as well as some mixed-use residential, both on the golf course,” he said. Also planned in other areas of Echo Valley are more-affordable townhouses, as well as a subdivision that will have homes in the $600,000 to $1 million range.

“The beauty of it is it’s so accessible,” Coppola said. “We have literally become the best location in the metropolitan area to get anywhere.”

Ludwig, who believes that Norwalk will issue 200 residential building permits this year and 300 next year, said the pace of development is still “comfortable, controlled growth.”

“I see Norwalk as just nice, small-town Iowa,” he said. “It’s not anything like a Waukee or a Clive or a West Des Moines. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, but they’re suburbs of Des Moines. This is something different, I think. So when people come out here, they see it more as small-town Iowa where they can walk to the old town center, to the bank, the post office. So they’re buying more lifestyle there, as opposed to getting into the suburban kind of rat race, maybe.”