I'm going out on a limb here.

The proposed development of 70 acres of land owned by Crown Hill cemetery is a good idea.

Save the coffee spit-takes and the hate e-mails till the end of the column, please.

A quick background: Crown Hill Cemetery wants to sell its northern 70 acres, which it has determined it will not need for burials, and use the money to fund its maintenance endowment. A development team comprised of locally based Mann Properties and national builder Ryland Homes wants to buy it.

Mann and Ryland want to create a development that would include 138 single-family homes and 171 townhomes. The far western edge of the property, along Michigan Road, would be reserved for retail development.

The outcry has been, to say the least, tremendous. A vote on the project has been delayed several times, with the latest hearing set for March 21 in front of the Metropolitan Development Commission.

One of the criticisms of the project is that it will come at the expense of the surrounding area, a neighborhood that a lot of dedicated residents and community leaders are working hard to revitalize.

Here's the thing, though. New, responsible development tends to stimulate, not depress, investment in the surrounding area. Look no further than Fall Creek Place, where construction of new homes and rehabilitation of old homes have spurred dozens of private developers to redevelop old buildings and vacant lots outside the neighborhood's boundaries.

And as much as it pains me to admit it, Mann and Ryland, developers best known for chewing up suburban farm fields and woodlots, have come up with a responsible development plan for the Crown Hill land.

It's the kind of plan that we as Center and Washington Township residents are going to have to open our minds to. While I personally don't understand why, a lot of people want brand-spanking new homes in neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs. Unless they have that option in the city, they're going to keep moving outside Marion County, further depressing our property values and tax base.

Ideally, the entire 70 acres would become a public park or preserve. And if all the estimated 2,700 trees on this property were going to be cut down, and if the 3.4 acres of wetlands were all going to be filled in, I'd be writing letters, too.

But on the 18th floor of the City-County building, in the property's zoning file, underneath the 6-inch stack of letters opposing the project, is the actual development plan for the property. I question how many of the letter writers have taken a good look at it.

Among the pretty drawings are current surveys and aerial photos dating back to the 1930s. These photos and surveys show the most mature trees on the property, and 3.1 acres of the wetlands, are in its middle section.

This is the same 20-acre section of the property left virtually untouched by Mann's proposed development. No roads will be built across it; single-family homes lie to the east, along Clarendon Road, and the multifamily and retail sections are to the west, accessible only from Michigan Road and 42nd Street. Architectural standards for the project are clearly spelled out, perhaps best summed up with the line "No vinyl siding will be permitted."

If Crown Hill were to keep the land, and cut down the trees and fill the wetlands to use for gravesites, would there be a public outcry? No. That's been demonstrated just across White River from the site, where International School of Indiana-a great community asset in its own right-has without controversy filled in much of its 60 acres of floodplain (wetlands) for a new school and a godawful pole barn that it calls a multi-purpose building.

Why then, all the criticism for Crown Hill? Is it merely because somebody stands to make a profit?