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Posh Homes Draw Buyers

Oakland Township's new, $1-billion development promises to raise the bar on luxury living

OAKLAND TOWNSHIP - On the front gate of a new $1-billion housing development, the builders have put up a six-foot plaque thanking the township for allowing them to join the community.

Not everyone gets to build in Oakland Township. The community has stringent development regulations, designed to protect both the environment and the rural quality of life that has drawn so many new residents to the area.

The newest development is The Oaklands, under construction now by the Moceri Companies of Auburn Hills. The township is already an upscale bedroom community - average home sales top $350,000 - but this project promises to raise the bar. A home in the Oaklands would cost buyers $455,000 to $1.5 million, depending on which of the seven linked neighborhoods they chose.

"Nowhere else in the Midwest is there this concentration of luxury housing all at one time," said company partner Dominic Moceri.

The township, with its alluring mix of highways and shopping malls to the south, and tranquil trout creeks, farmland and golf courses to the north, has been drawing affluent home buyers for years. The monument at the front gate is presented as a tribute to the "natural beauty and grandeur that is Oakland Township."

Although the homes won't be completed until next summer, Moceri said the company has made $35 million worth of sales - about 60 homes. And the waiting list "is as long as my arm."

The homes range from upscale condominiums to 8,000-square-foot mansions on two-acre lots, each painstakingly designed to fit in with Oakland Township's elaborate master plan. The township carefully regulates new development in an effort to preserve the countryside that attracts residents to the area in the first place.

"The residents of Oakland Township would like to keep the rural flavor of the community," said township planning coordinator Mary Collins. "Every developer has to go through both the planning commission and the development commission before the work can proceed."

The Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments predicts that Oakland Township's population will more than double in the next two decades, from 11,665 this year to 24,515 in 2020. So the township is taking pains to ensure that all those new homes and people blend into the landscape.

For the Oaklands, following the development master plan means setting aside at least 30 percent of the 400-acre property for green space, replacing every tree developers cut down and preserving the creeks and wetlands on the site.

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