When Melvin Becker steps out into his front yard each morning, he looks across to what he calls paradise - the soft, rolling hills of Westhaven Golf Club.
That view could fade into a memory soon for Becker and others who live on Maple Drive, just south of Belleville. A developer has purchased the nine-hole golf course with plans to replace the fairways, sand traps and greens with 138 homes.
"Our homes are all common homes, but as I'm sitting here in the front lawn on my lawn mower, I feel like I'm in a fancy neighborhood with fancy homes," said Becker, 77.
The 14 houses on Maple Drive sit on the south side of the road facing the golf course, which was built in the late 1930s. The narrow asphalt road that trails west off Illinois 159 is all that separates the golf course from the well-kept houses of varying ages with large, manicured lawns. The backs of houses in the new development would face Maple Drive.
Becker and his wife, Jeanette, built their brick ranch-style house on the dead-end street 50 years ago and raised five children there. The view of the golf course was something the family had begun to take for granted, he said.
"Now that they're trying to take it away from us, we're really hurt about it. Everybody on the street is really down and out about it," Becker said.
Having an entrance off Maple Drive into the planned subdivision could disrupt the quiet life he and his neighbors have enjoyed, he said. There also is concern of storm water run-off, Becker said.
The family trusts of Arthur Buesch Jr. and Ruth H. Buesch sold the golf course to Veile Construction Co. of Belleville. The developer got approval Monday night from the Belleville City Council to have the 58 acres annexed.
After detailed plans of the development are turned in to the city and approved, construction on the subdivision infrastructure could begin in three months, said city economic development and planning director Mike Malloy. He defended the conversion of one of the region's oldest golf courses into a subdivision that will continue to move the city's population south of Illinois 15.
"There is no doubt that this is conducive to what we're trying to do in Belleville in terms of creating a variety of quality residential subdivisions," Malloy said. "It's in close proximity to downtown. But we didn't pick it out. The annexation was totally voluntary. The developer came to us."
Neither Veile Construction nor the sellers of the property would comment on the development plans. Malloy said the houses will sell for about $160,000.
Mayor Mark Kern said the city is working to assure the development is "as high quality as possible" and had succeeded in persuading the developers to reduce the number of houses to 138 from 178. The mayor also said the concerns about increased traffic coming off Illinois 159 and onto Maple Drive to get into the new subdivision were justified. He said the city would work with the state to come up with a plan to improve that intersection.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)