Recent development in west Ames near the intersection of South Dakota Avenue and Mortensen Road has been “very rapid,” but it should slow as land becomes less available.

“Development has been very rapid for Ames in the last five years, there have been 1,000 new units going in out there,” said Matthew Flynn, director of planning and housing for the city of Ames.

He said land availability in the area is shrinking, which could put a damper on further development.

Jeff Benson, city planner for Ames, also said the area is developing quickly, but said new construction has started to taper off.

“Anytime you have four buildings being built simultaneously, that’s a pretty big project for Ames,” he said. “We haven’t seen any new apartments started out there in the last few months — most of it was started last fall.”

Recent rezoning has made the land more available to commercial use, setting aside less land for residential housing.

“In the spring, the city planning department brought forth a community plan,” Flynn said. “It restricted it to where residential is not permitted within the district.”

Benson said the area was rezoned to have more emphasis on commercial development.

“What we did last spring was change zoning on part of that ground between Dickenson and South Dakota to commercial use only,” Benson said.

Apartment buildings can still be built in this area if they contain commercial space on the first floor.

“All the new apartments east of Sterling have commercial space on the first floor,” Benson said.

“The rezoning process was a result of requests from developers and builders,” said City Councilman Steve Goodhue.

“I don’t recall that we had a lot of input from residents. We respond to requests, and in this case, it was a request from developers.”

Goodhue said the land south of the new middle school on Mortensen Road was rezoned from low density residential to medium and high density residential.

That means instead of single family houses, the land is zoned for apartment complexes.

“It was previously governmental land, and we thought it would be the best use of the land,” he said.

The growing residential population in the area may be a draw for businesses.

“There’s a big concentration of high density residential multi-family housing in the area,” Flynn said.

Clint Varley, assistant manager for Jensen Property Management, said there is a variety of people living in the area.

“There is a dense residential population out there,” he said. “There are college students and graduate students and families.”

It is a place where businesses can attract both older and younger demographics, Varley said.