Cape residents opposing a 42-unit subdivision in town were gathering signatures at the high school gym Tuesday, and the project’s developers were nearby, hoping to convince voters not to sign.

The petitioners, a group calling itself Neighborhoods for Sensible Development, were working to get 10 percent of Cape’s registered voters to sign their petition, which would change the town’s zoning away from a policy they say supports the development of “short-cut” streets through what would otherwise be dead-end neighborhoods.

The Spurwink Woods development proposal is for 42 housing units on 26 acres between Spurwink Avenue and Mitchell Road. The buildings will be 24 single-family homes and nine two-family condominiums, with an average sales price of $400,000.

The town’s zoning ordinance requires developments to have two entrance and exit points for safety purposes and to smooth traffic flow. The Spurwink Woods project would link two dead-end neighborhoods on Dermot Drive and Killdeer Road, which many residents would prefer remain as they are.

With signatures from 10 percent of the town’s registered voters – 767 people – the issue would come before the Town Council for adoption or to be sent to referendum.

The residents of the neighborhoods say what initially attracted them to their homes was the quiet relatively traffic-free existence of a dead-end street. They say the connector road would create a short-cut from Mitchell Road to Spurwink Avenue.

“We’re used to neighborhoods where kids can learn to ride their bikes in the street,” said Becky Fernald, a member of the petition group who lives on busy Mitchell Road and sends her kids over to the quieter Columbus Road neighborhood to play.

Members of the petition group say they are concerned not only with this project, but also the future of Cape’s development. They worry that this project could set a precedent for increased connectivity, which could lead to increased traffic in many quiet neighborhoods.

The development “changes the nature of the neighborhood. If somebody wants a busier more active neighborhood, they might prefer it,” said Claudia Dricot, who added that housing values are higher in dead-end neighborhoods.

Craig Cooper of Rainbow Construction, one of three men working together on the development, said the partnership is getting squeezed on both sides. He said he has tried playing the development games by the rules.

He said the team developing the project has worked closely with the town for the past two years to ensure they have met the zoning requirements. “I’m disappointed. We’ve been trying to do this by the book, and now somebody’s trying to rewrite the book,” he said.

Cooper said his team has met the requests of the planning office by including sidewalks, smaller lots, open space, buffer zones and trails in the development plan. “We’ve tried to be sensitive, but there are people who are saying ‘I think development is a good thing, but not in my backyard,'” he said.

Cooper’s partner Skip Murray, the excavator for the project, is feeling the pinch also. He said his team “just happens to be the poor developer sitting in the middle.”

Town Planner Maureen O’Meara has said she is in support of connecting neighborhoods and that an ordinance change would be “a step backward.”

Though Skip Murray and Claudia Dricot represent opposing interests in the Spurwink Woods development debate, they chatted in a friendly manner at the polls where both Spurwink Woods LLC and Neighborhoods for Sensible Development set up camp for the day. Claudia Dricot and the Neighborhoods for Sensible development were collecting signatures to petition the town council for a development ordianance change while Skip Murray of Spurwink Woods LLC was hoping to convince people to not sign the petition.Craig Cooper of Rainbow Construction discusses the Spurwink Woods development project with Joe McHugh a Cape resident since 1990 who says he has mixed feelings about the proposal. He’s concerned about traffic but says the developers have rights when developing the property.