But doing so can come back to haunt major developments -- from airports to universities -- that can generate hundreds and thousands of jobs but find themselves battling neighbors over noise, traffic or growth plans.

"This is a planner's dream, to put housing near jobs, roads, utilities," said Dwight Saathoff, one of the property owners behind the development.

But Seminole County's planning and zoning board had recommended denial. Among its objections: the same thing that supporters say makes sense -- homes close to an airport.

Ben Tucker, chairman of the planning and zoning board, knows about living near noisy airports. He grew up on Air Force bases and near what's now Orlando Executive Airport.

"I'm used to it, but I also know that there are problems with it," Tucker said.

Already, there are scattered developments around the airport, many of which were there when it was a Navy air station and then a quiet general aviation airport.

So, with the airport now handling about 350,000 flights a year, 12,000 of them commercial-airline operations, people moving in should know what to expect, said Josephine VonHerbulis, who has lived close to one of the runways since the 1940s.

"They know it's here," said VonHerbulis, 76.

UCF AS AN EXAMPLE

But the other reality is that, the more people who move near the airport, the more likely it is for there to be organized opposition to airport growth, said Richard Harris, a member of the planning and zoning board.

"You're going to get people who complain no matter how long that airport was there before they were there," Harris said, shortly after voting against Cameron Heights.

Harris pointed to the University of Central Florida as an example of another institution struggling with neighbors who moved in years -- even decades -- after the school was started.

When it opened its doors to students as Florida Technological University in 1968, the school was considered remote.

"They wanted room to grow," said Joanne Griggs, the university's assistant director of marketing. "This was way out."

But as time went on, residential subdivisions sprouted around the university. And some of the new residents have fought aggressively against student housing and university expansion plans.

"It is frustrating, very frustrating to us," said Dan Holsenbeck, vice president for university relations. "You almost want to say, `Well, didn't you realize you were moving next to a university when you were moving there?' "

Sue Eberle moved to the RiverWalk subdivision about a mile from UCF in 1994. RiverWalk was close to her husband's job in Central Florida Research Park, a high-tech office park created partly to foster business-research relationships with UCF.

She has since become one of the most vocal opponents of the school's growth plans.

Eberle said she expected change, but not on the scale that she sees it coming.

She thinks the school is growing in an irresponsible way, focusing on amenities such as a proposed stadium instead of creating more on-campus housing for students so off-campus apartments don't contribute to sprawl.

"Things can grow . . . in a controlled way," she said.

COMMON AIRPORT PROBLEM

While universities and other institutions can run into conflicts as they grow, airports seem particularly susceptible. Such problems have gotten the attention of the American Planning Association, which is working on a study of good planning practices around airports, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which has created a committee to tackle the same subject. That committee had its first meeting Thursday.

Co-existing can be particularly difficult for smaller regional airports, such as Orlando Sanford International, which have become hubs for smaller, discount carriers.

For years, "they didn't have enough traffic to warrant concern," said Richard Marchi, a senior vice president with Airports International CouncilNorth America. "All of a sudden, they're beginning to have noise problems they didn't have when the traffic levels were lower."

Officials at Orlando International Airport have fielded noise complaints through the years, too, but they say it helps that the airport has a large land buffer and that most planes take off toward the lesspopulated south.

But development is on the go to the south and east, where thousands of new homes are expected.

To head off potential conflicts, new homeowners must be given written notification that their properties lie near an airport.

The same practice will be put into place for future homes near Orlando Sanford International Airport, planners say.

Planners in Sanford also have designated land in the noisiest areas -- south and east of the airport -- for industrial and commercial development instead of homes.

Airport officials and planners say there shouldn't be a problem with new homes north of the airport, where Cameron Heights will be, because they will lie outside the boundary of what the FAA considers areas of unacceptable noise levels.

Still, planners have recommended that at least some of the new homes have special insulation to soundproof them.

"We know, just based on reality, there will be some noise," Seminole County planner Jeff Hopper said. "People will hear it. . . . We want to do something that ameliorates that problem."