An egret looks for his lily pond in Arcadia off Trenholm Road. For years, travelers along Trenholm Road just down from Decker Blvd. couldn’t help but notice the lily pond that sat tucked off the side of the road and carried its own special tranquil splendor. Walkers, joggers, bikers, and even some motorists have been known to stop and just look at the pond, marveling at its peacefulness and perhaps, depending on the time of day, listening for the infrequent country sounds of chirping crickets, splashing fish, or bellowing bullfrogs.

But soon, if the developers have their way, that pond and all its loveliness may be a thing of the past. The drainage of the pond is almost complete and the dying, withering lily pads and a few hopeful birds pecking in the eroding mud that once was a thing of aquatic beauty are all that’s left after progress is leaving its mark on what a community long held as an honored spot of peace.

The water level at the lily pond used to be as high as the concrete block. The folk singer Joanie Mitchell is well known for a 1970’s song that says “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” and that’s what the residents of Arcadia Lakes and surrounding communities are saying that developer Robert Mundy is doing to their neighborhoods.

Residents have been fighting the influx of Mundy’s apartments for years, and a court case of appeal is in the works. But in May of this year, the pond began to drain. Residents say the developers are jumping the gun as a large group of people are opposed to Mundy’s ideas.

“Mundy deceived the entire community years ago,” said Linda Jackson, the spearhead of the movement to stop Mundy and his plans to put in three–story apartments where he originally told the residents in 2004 he was putting in patio homes with only four units to the acre.

“He presented the Arcadia Lakes community with a plan that included high–end owner–occupied single family patio homes and condominiums,” Jackson said. “In August of 2008, after the rezoning of the property was sealed, Mundy revealed to Rick Thomas, the mayor of Arcadia Lakes, that he was actually going to build an apartment complex with approximately 16 units per acre. And additionally, there would be almost 400 parking spaces.”

She said the community would never have allowed the rezoning to take place had they known Mundy’s real plans.

“What he’s planning is totally out of character with the community,” she said. “What he did was so very wrong.”

Jackson and a number of other petitioners have a case against Roper Pond LLC, a developer company where Mundy was the managing member at the time of the land purchase. The property was owned by the Roper family until 2004 when Mundy bought it under the Roper Pond LLC name for $1,500,000, she said.

“The property is a 12.75 acre parcel and is probably best known for that beautiful lily pond at the front of the tract,” Jackson said. “But now the builder has begun to dredge out the pond to make it a detention pond for sediment, runoff, and who knows what other kinds of pollution.”

A number of individual homeowners as well as the Town of Arcadia Lakes appealed the decision of the Richland County Planning Commission allowing the project to go forward as an apartment complex. They also petitioned the decision of DHEC to issue permits for the project, Jackson said.

“The Planning Commission denied our appeals” Jackson said. “They said their hands were tied because the developer met the minimal standards needed to move forward.”

Richland County Councilman Greg Pearce said that unfortunately, once the initial zoning was approved, even though it was thought that homes and condos would be built, Mundy could build what he wanted. If Mundy had done a planned development district zoning he would have had to publicly lay out the property plans and specifics of what he would be building on the land.

“Instead he asked for a general straight up rezoning, which could mean anything from a WalMart to a fireworks stand,” Pearce said.

“When Mr. Mundy presented his case for zoning rights to the planning commission, he had the property zoned for homes or apartments, but since he didn’t do a planned development district, which would have held him to building only houses, it got through. He did a general zoning classification that allowed for homes or apartments. The residents at that time must have taken him at his word because, to my knowledge, no one came before the panel to dispute the proposition,” Pearce said. “We all care very much about how the neighbors feel, and if we could intercede we would. We just can’t.”

Jackson said that while the filling in of the lily pond will be a tragic loss to the community, the environmental impact of the proposed development on the Roper property and the surrounding areas would also be significant.

“Mundy is planning to drain the pond and then use it as a detention pond, where a portion of the silt, sedimentation, and pollution will feed into Cary Lake and Gillscreek Watershed. Gillscreek is already an impaired watershed,” she said. “All sorts of wildlife from the egrets and geese to the fish and turtles will be affected.”

She said that along with property values going down, there will be increased traffic in the area as well.

“The proposed entrance to the apartments is slated to be across from Dent Middle School, and we believe the traffic there will be greatly increased and will affect the safety of the children. The facts in this case lead many of us to believe that our entire community will be adversely impacted if this project moves forward. There are already two houses across from Roper Pond that are up for sale. That’s so unfair to the residents who have lived here for decades. Their property values will decrease, and the project will likely become an eyesore.”

As the Joanie Mitchell song said,

“Don’t it always seem

to go,

That you don’t know

what you've got ’til

it’s gone.

The paved paradise

put up a parking lot.”

Mundy couldn’t be reached for comment and no contact information for Roper Pond LLC or Estates Management LLC could be found for this article. We hope to speak to Mundy and get his perspective on this subject.