I absolutely hate the new trend of developments that have attacked New Jersey. The hosues are huge and gaudy. Not only to they graze any tree withing a 100 yard radius of the sub divided plot, but think about the materials used on the house. With all the wood for one big house you could house five poor families. In the winter the electricity for heating must be incredible, and of course...how coudl you have one of them without sprinklers on timers! so that even when its raining your watering your lawn. Its riduculous.

i bring this up because i live on a fairly rural street and they are about to build five new houses down the street. IN doing this they will be killing a stewardship forest and ruinging a flying squirrel habitat.

my back yard i just found out is soon to be a coldesack. I have started a petition and my nieghbors have all signed it, and we all plan to attned a board meeting this tuesday.

Does anybody have any ideas on how to stop this atrosity?

I agree. There is a stretch of Ohio SR 32 between Columbus and my in-laws' house (where my husband grew up) that has seen a huge building boom in the last five years. When my husband graduated from college, he moved back home. He lived there for a year while he worked as the interim youth director for his home church. I was living in Indiana at the time (an area that is still rural:vebo: ) and we were continuing to do the long distance thing. It was rural enough that I knew that even if I didn't think I should stop, I would stop on the other side of Columbus, just in case. There was a Wal-Mart open with a large, developing shopping center that I stopped at on occasion. Now the stretch is completey developed; Not much rural left. This spring there was an article in the Sunday Columbus Dispatch on the river there and the health of it as a result of the development. One of the locals interviewed, I think, said that he would not sell his farmland for the devleopment. He wanted to keep the river safe and his farm. I wish I had saved it.

I also look at the new subdivisions and wonder why. The new houses are big and ostentatious, and expensive and they all freaking look alike. My sister lives in one of those, not one of the really big houses, but her house looks like several others on the street. I think my husband and I would not have found the house one of the first times we drove to it had my parents' car not already been in the drive. Blah. I really don't want to live in a neighborhood like that.... Unless I can paint my front door hot pink or something.

There's a creek that runs though Columbus (there's also a river, but after looking at the Ohio River for 14 years of my life it looks like a large creek), Alum Creek, which I live near. There is a group, that I should join or look more into, Friends of Alum Creek. Recently, the Alum Creek Trail was expanded to the other side of the road. That made me happy because all of the crap that accumulated on the steep hill by the creek was cleared up.

Sorry. I rambled.

Stand up against it. Go to planning meetings, etc and protest. See if there are any environmental groups in your region willing to help you. See if you can get a wildlife survey done and determine if any endangered animals live there, then see if a wildlife protection organization will file an injunction against the developers.

If you're willing to get arrested, pull out the survey stakes, get in the way of the bulldozers, etc. (mods, let me know if this is in violation of the TOS)

Grrrr I know exactly what you are talking about. I grew up in a place that was all bush and scrub to begin with, it was beautiful, but by the time I moved out it had become "housing estate hell". Massive houses on smallish blocks...no land left to speak of :( It was/is horrible.Just keep fighting, do everything and anything you can think of.....

Pessimistically you may not make a difference...SO print up little brochures on how to be environmentally friendly...and drop them in the letterboxes of the new residents.

You may not be able to stop it, but you may be able to impact the daily lives of your new neighbours.