1952 Many Fight Subdivision; Property Owners Protest New Meadowbrook Housing

Published 30 July, 1952, just over 16 years after the neighborhood started. Take a read through the articles, click to enlarge, but here is the TLDR gist of it all ...

The "fight" and "protest" of the home owners in 1952 was that Meadowbrook Inc was going to put up smaller sized homes on even smaller lots, contrary to original plans. The confusion and frustration in these articles really comes across, but gets lost in the sauce of technical details.

Ultimately with help from various Borough and County officials they were able to preserve the lot setbacks and sizes for the neighborhood as submitted in the surveys originally within boundries of Farragut (west), Mountain (north), Netherwood (east), the Green Brook / county border (south). 

However, any influence about imposing or retaining "deed restrictions" of by-gone-eras was thoroughly abandonded as new homes were built for a new generation that included everyone.

As you can read in this excerpt there was clearly some hand wringing and standing outburst attempts to conflate lot sizes and house sizes with "deed restrictions".  The Norwood Homes (confusing as the company building them was named Norwood, not on Norwood Ave) were being built nearby Meadowbrook neighborhood on the north side of Mountain Ave and in similar areas that once upon a time were part of the Johnston/Mali Estate.  But as you can see in the confused outburst these were never part of Meadowbrook Inc., as those lands remained in ownership by the estate heirs under the Netherwood Farms Corporation.  Netherwood Farms Corp. would sell land to Meadowbrook Inc as pieces were built or completed, but that didn't mean the entire former estate was Meadowbrook... 

In 1952, these new homes were built to mirror demand for returning veterans and the VA Loans did not follow prior "deed restrictions" that were included in earlier era FHA loans when Meadowbrook neighborhood (to include Meadowbrook Village apartments in 1938!) was initially started.   After WWII, lessons learned, these new 30-year mortgages and homes were for everyone, and without restrictions.  And to this day thankfully anyone can live in Meadowbrook.

Stay tuned, there's an update to this article at the end of 1952's August with all the particulars decided upon...

... also, this was published 6 August 1952, residents of the Norwood Homes did not care for the opinions of the "choosy" Meadowbrook neighbors. Interesting notes on the veteran population as well as inflation of the time period and its effects.