A plan for homes pits Thornbury residents such as Isabelle Smith against Toll Bros. and its lawyers. Both claim to have the public's interest at heart. Both have brought in lawyers. Toll says it will go to court if necessary to build Thornbury Woods, a community of 124 luxury four-bedroom homes, on the Horse Farm. Thornbury Township has zoned the land for one house on every two acres.
Toll wants to use the township's cluster-development ordinance to exceed that density.
Fighting the plan is the Concerned Citizens of Thornbury Township, a group of about 400 residents, some from a community founded 53 years ago by Quaker activists. Again, Strike Back. Group members say that what's proposed would imperil fragile ecosystems on the Horse Farm's steep slopes and wetlands and in its woods. They fear a loss of habitat for foxes, muskrat and great blue herons. Plans to blast into the rocky hillside could dry up wells.