Thompson Greene will be quite the place to call home.

The 50-unit, townhouse-style housing development in Butler Township will consist of 30 two-bedroom and 20 three-bedroom townhouses with garages.

Andy Cohen, a project manager with The Woda Group, which is building the development and will manage it after construction is complete, said most of the site work on the 11 acres is complete, and two of the development’s eight buildings have been fully roofed.

The $11-million construction can be seen on the north side of U.S. Route 422 just west of North Duffy Road.

The Thompson Greene development will be completed by year’s end. The 50 units should be fully leased before they’re done, Cohen says.

The development will include a half court basketball court, a playground and trails for walking and biking, and a common building with laundry facilities, maintenance and site manager’s office.

It also will feature a tall, stockade-style fence separating Thompson Green from the adjacent Westwood Manor, a conventional residential development of single-family homes.

Some Westwood residents have complained about the new development because it will qualify for federal housing subsidies. They said it amounts to “low-income” housing whose residents will attract crime and lower their property values. They asked the township commissioners to block the development; and when they voted unanimously to allow it, they demanded that Woda Group put up the fencing.

The sad thing is, the Westwood Manor residents are failing to see and welcome the people who will live in Thompson Greene; namely, employees of the two new motels, the coming VA Butler Healthcare Center, the new Dick’s Sporting Goods and adjacent stores, and the other myriad of businesses that keep Butler Township ticking.

To be specific, we’re talking about solid management people — most with college diplomas, big ambition and not much else. They’re intent on starting families and advancing their careers.

Woda is carefully marketing its $11-million investment as “work force housing” that qualifies for a federal low-income tax credit program. The average resident would make $19,000 to $30,000 a year and would pay about $675 per month for a two-bedroom townhouse or $800 per month for a three-bedroom townhouse.

Obviously, the tax credits benefit the residents who take advantage of the new development their near place of work. Their savings can be applied to the financial rigors of day-do-day life, or they can save it for a future mortgage on a home of their own.

The tax credits obviously help the Woda Group with realizing a profit on their investment as well as capital for new developments.

But it also helps the Westwood Manor residents, who not only live near a host of stores offering competitive prices, but who also will live next door to the people whose lower incomes make all those discount stores a reality.

The plan hardly sounds like slum housing for destitute or transient people. Rather, it sounds more like prudent anticipation of the growing demand for homes near a bustling retail district.