When it comes to development, where do you stand?

Are you a proponent of living in a mass housing development in an urban area with everything you need or desire at your fingertips? Or perhaps you fancy the idea of a gated-in subdivision on the edge of suburbia with peace and quiet, not to mention space to raise a family and bus rides to the best schools in the area for your children?

Different people would choose different answers to the above question because there will obviously never be a time when everyone agrees that one way of living is the only (and right) way.

I bring up these issues in particular because when I look at the future development of Broad Ripple (as it stands, these things obviously tend to change-See: Spin will not get sold), I feel like I am seeing the same thing being constructed in every owned plot of land that rounds up or down to one acre-condominiums. And not just one to five being built on this one acre, but more like 15 to 30.

I find most people tend to be against these mass developments due to the parking problems they will create more than anything else. While there is no doubt in my mind that they will indeed create traffic hazards, I tend to be very against these developments for another reason-I cannot stand the idea of destroying history (or not buying into it, for that matter) for the look of a clean, two story, two bedroom condo with all the much needed modern necessities (like wall hook-ups for a jumbo flatscreen) that the same 25 people or families that live in an acre of me will have, too.

I realize that purchasing a home and paying a mortgage rather than rent is one of the best investments a person can make-I applaud the people my age who have the guts to root themselves in one place for an extended period-but I simply cannot understand why they need something as outlandish as a $250,000 condo without originality.

I quote $250,000 because that's the rounded off price for one of the 23 "Winthrop Villas" that will break ground sometime this year on Winthrop just south of Broad Ripple Avenue and west of the Monon Trail.

Walk less than a block south of that development and you will hit another condominium project.

While I would never buy one, I do agree that these types of housing complexes have their places. Just not Broad Ripple, even though it has become a magnet for them.

The homes that were knocked down and will be knocked down for these condos? Those are the kind of homes that I would like to buy-original and full of character.

I know many people will disagree. Many people just simply don't want to deal with the workings of an old home and want all the amenities that modern housing can give. It would be easy to tell them to all go to the suburbs, but they, too, must like being able to walk everywhere they need to go.

So where do you stand in regards to Broad Ripple? Should we continue to tear down old and historic homes to build modern mass housing complexes that will bring economic benefits to the area? Or do we attempt to keep some of the historic charm but risk not bringing a certain demographic into the area? I guess 2008 will have to provide us with an answer. -AP

X marks the spot: the boxes point out the x's that have been drawn on the trees on Winthrop that will need to be cut down for the Winthrop Villages to begin construction.