AVON - Since last year, residents in Avon have been up in arms over the proposal to build single-family homes at the Blue Fox Run Golf Course on Nod Road.
That discussion continued Tuesday evening where the developer, Anthony Giorgio with Keystone Companies LLC presented his proposal to the Planning and Zoning Committee for the first time.
Giorgio filed an application to have a zone change at the golf course, but many residents said they do not want to see the property ruined.
"You don’t develop the way we want to develop, something worse will happen to you," said Stephen McGrath of Avon.
McGrath read off of a flyer he got in the mail from Keystone Companies LLC. He was one of many frustrated people inside the cafeteria of Avon Middle School.
Several residents did not get to express their concerns until at least 10 p.m.
"These are scare tactics. Pure and simple scare tactics. I’ve been around a long time and I have heard this song before and anytime contractors come in and spoil the environment, they always say oh we’re really saving it," added McGrath.
Some people wore their green "Save Nod Road" shirts while some plastered the bumper stickers on their cars as a way to send a message saying they do not want the 95 single-family homes to be built on the golf course.
Robin Barran started a petition against the project where it has gotten over two-thousand signatures.
"For some people, it’s hiking up the Heublein Tower and looking down and seeing all the development along Route 10 and Simsbury and realizing that they don’t want that to happen to this property," added Barran of Avon.
FOX61 spoke to the developer himself.
"Their position from the very beginning is we don’t want anything - even one house is too much. I don’t know how to rationally talk to someone who starts off by saying I don’t want anything," said Giorgio.
Giorgio said the golf course is allocating roughly 80 of its 222 acres for development. He added he is proposing a zone change for less than half of that acreage that will change the status of the land from agricultural to residential.
The remainder of the land - over 180 acres will be put into a permanent conservation easement.
"The street scape for anyone who drives up and down Nod Road will remain exactly the same. The first house will be over 400 feet from the road, there’s an existing mature tree line that will remain, there’s a golf course that will remain, there’s a secondary tree line that will remain and then the houses will begin," added Giorgio.
No final decisions were made Tuesday evening. The next public hearing is schedule for July 9th at 7 p.m. at Avon Middle School.