Ms. Peterson said house prices range from $450,000 (on a half-acre plot) to $600,000 (on the more common two-acre plot).

Zimmer purchased an adjoining two-acre plot in 1866, and sold the two plots to the Diocese in 1868.

Mostly on one- or two-acre plots of land, the privately owned residences are surrounded by both woods and corn fields.

People who had invested in as little as four acres years ago so that they could sell two-acre plots in their retirements would be affected, he said.

This would place nine single-family homes on two-acre plots, to set aside a 25-acre space for polo and other equestrian uses.

They plunked down $680,000 for a teeny ranch on a wooded two-acre plot.

Mr. Dash bought his nearly two-acre plot in Sagaponack from a farming family in 1966.

The children's garden opened in 1914 as an experiment in hands-on education, and since then the two-acre plot has been tended by more than 30,000 youngsters.

Proceeds from the sale of the two-acre plot will be kept in perpetuity, with the interest used to provide extra health services for Teesdale residents, he said.

His desire to develop the land into two-acre "exclusive" plots is countered by the village proposal of three acres.