Research convinced Clayton Pace that Warren County could use more apartments and more housing for seniors, so the president of the development division of Louisville’s Denton Floyd Real Estate Group is doing something about it.

The first step came Thursday, when Denton Floyd won unanimous approval from the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County to bring nearly 400 apartments and a 131-unit assisted living facility to Plano.

“We did quite an extensive market study, and it revealed quite a deficit for assisted living and multi-family housing,” Pace said. “It’s important for us to find out what the need is. We don’t want to go into a community that doesn’t have that need.”

The need is clear in Warren County, where explosive industrial growth has led to a dearth of housing that was only exacerbated by the December tornadoes.

Denton Floyd, which has built high-end multi-family developments in Jeffersonville, Ind., Indianapolis and other areas, brought a project to the planning commission that needed little selling, even if it does add to the traffic on already-busy Plano Road.

The planning commission approved Denton Floyd’s application to rezone 43 acres along Plano Road, between Scottsville Road and the entrance to the new Magnolia Hills subdivision, from agriculture to multi-family residential and office and professional-commercial.

Denton Floyd’s plan for the property is to build a 392-unit apartment complex on the 32 acres to be zoned multi-family and construct the assisted living community on the 11 OP-C acres.

Chris Davenport, the attorney representing Denton Floyd, gave the commissioners a sales pitch they probably didn’t even need.

“We in this community see the need for new housing, particularly for first-time homeowners and renters,” Davenport said. “And coming is a need for assisted living. This is a particularly great idea and something the community needs.”

Pace and his company presented an attractive development plan.

The multi-family portion will include such amenities as sidewalks, a community pool, a dog park and a clubhouse.

At three stories, the assisted living facility will include a restaurant, a theater and a garden.

To further sweeten the development, Denton Floyd agreed to install right- and left-turn lanes on Plano Road at the entrance of the multi-family portion.

The developers plan to demolish two existing homes on the property but will donate salvageable materials to Habitat for Humanity or a similar organization.

Davenport said Denton Floyd leadership was also willing to have the two existing homes used by the Plano Volunteer Fire Department for training before they are demolished.

The rezoning still must go to Warren Fiscal Court for final approval, but Pace is already looking ahead to his company’s construction schedule.

“We would like to start in the first quarter of next year,” he said. “That will begin a two-year process. We have our own construction company, so we’ll do both projects at the same time.”

Pace said roughly half of the apartments will be two-bedroom units, with the rest being split between one- and three-bedroom units.

Another application approved by the planning commission Thursday could lead to more apartments in a different part of town.

Onyeorizi Nwanguma of Sevenplus LLC and Morgantown Bank & Trust were approved for a development plan amendment on 10.6 acres that include the bank branch at 1848 Morgantown Road.

The amendment was needed to allow greater flexibility in lot sizes and number of lots in a proposed multi-family portion of the development, according to the application.

That multi-family portion will include a maximum of 48 apartments.

Davenport, representing Nwanguma, explained that a site review process revealed that “what they had planned wasn’t going to work.”

No new or additional uses for the property are being proposed, Davenport said.