At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about the empty field on the southwest corner of Skillman and Church. One part wraps behind Fields Cemetery until it eventually runs up against a church a couple of blocks south on Skillman. Another portion goes west along Church where it, too, backs up against a church. It’s a little more than eight acres of grass and a stand of stunted trees that have been vacant for what seems like decades.

But this is more than an empty field. To some in Lake Highlands, it’s the future of the neighborhood — the proposed site of a progressive, much needed development in the spirit of the Lake Highlands Town Center. To others, it’s a future that they have already seen and don’t want to repeat — a multi-family project in a residential neighborhood, with all of the history that that entails.

Sign up for our newsletter!

* indicates required

“Yes, we have gotten along for a long time,” says Bill Vandivort, a neighborhood resident and former chairman of the county real estate appraisal board. “But for 15 or 20 years, the only thing that happened here was that a few empty lots were platted. Now it’s our turn to discover that people have different opinions.”

Since plans for the Town Center were finalized, three major projects have been announced. Their reception has been, at best, lukewarm, and the Church and Skillman proposal hasn’t even been that well received. Why is a neighborhood that once embraced development — practically begged for it — so divided now that it has arrived? Why are some so adamant that, save for the Town Center, the only development they want are traditional, single-family homes and traditional neighborhood retail to go with it? Why do others, equally adamant, insist that this approach is impractical? And why are personalities usually absent from Lake Highlands political discussions showing up in these debates?

The answer lies in the tangled 20-year relationship between the area and its aging apartment buildings as well as the changing economics of the development business, which focuses on density to the exclusion of almost all else. And density, to Lake Highlands residents, means apartments.

A suburban environment

There are two things that everyone agrees on about Lake Highlands. It’s a wonderful place to live, with good schools and a great location. And it would be even better if The Apartments were gone.

And, after 20 years, this finally seems possible. Construction for the Town Center tore a swath through the Skillman area, and more projects are possible — not only along Skillman, as projects piggyback on the Town Center, but in other parts of the neighborhood. In fact, talk to real estate experts and developers, and they’ll tell you that almost any aging apartment building in Lake Highlands is a candidate for re-development.

That’s because developers want land inside LBJ — because people want to live inside LBJ in a way they d