Goshen residents say they weren't consulted about it, don't fully understand it and, regardless, don't want it.

They have a message for Augusta commissioners: Keep "neighborhood stabilization" stimulus money out of our neighborhood.

At a question-and-answer session with developers and city officials in commission chambers Tuesday, Fred Ogden, past president of the Goshen Residents Homeowners Association, said they were blind-sided last month by news that the city had applied for federal funds to restart the stalled Village at Goshen development. According to city documents, $21 million of a $50 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development application is for their middle-class golf course community, where houses sell for about $100,000 and up.

"It's painful for us to even deal with this, as a concept," Mr. Ogden said.

Commissioners have gripes of their own. Housing and Community Development Director Chester Wheeler and City Administrator Fred Russell were trying to make an application deadline and had an eleventh-hour scramble to line up developers with bank backing willing to take on projects within HUD-approved census tracts. Not wanting the city to miss out on a chance at the funds, Mr. Russell said, they submitted the application to Washington without commission approval and asked the board to ratify it afterward.

"The young man said that you were blind-sided," Commissioner J.R. Hatney said. "Don't feel bad."

Resident Becky Shealy asked whether the application could be recalled and rewritten.

"Not based on what I've been told," Mayor Pro Tem Alvin Mason said, "and I've been told very little."

Goshen residents expressed fears that the stimulus money could change their neighborhood demographics. They asked questions about subsidized mortgages and Section 8 housing and pointed out that the application includes bus transportation for people who don't have automobiles.

Mr. Wheeler assured them that Section 8 is out of the question, that the homes to be built would be for sale, not for rent. Meybohm Realtors Executive Vice President Bill Boatman said the plan is to build detached, single-family homes selling for between $130,000 and $200,000. Buyers would have to be credit-worthy, and the only help they might get through HUD would be down payment assistance.

"The target market would be just like any other market for homes in this price range," Mr. Boatman said.

Meybohm would be the selling agent. The developer would be Atlanta-based E.R. Mitchell & Co., and the financier would be Capital City Bank & Trust, the company that backed previous Village at Goshen developer Henry Forero, who at one time planned to build condominiums, townhomes and a hotel. Only 14 townhomes went up before the project collapsed.

What's being proposed now is far less dense than what would have gone up under Mr. Forero's plan, Mr. Boatman pointed out.

Resident Billy Wingate complained that there were nearly $57,000 in unpaid taxes on the property and that it was due to be sold on the courthouse steps a few weeks ago, but the bank seems to have prevented that.

"I wish somebody'd come and see me like that," he said.

"I understand that," Commissioner Joe Bowles said, "but the money is there, and the question is, do we want to bring this money into our community?"

"No," Mr. Wingate said.

"Not under this plan," Mr. Ogden said.