The land r*pers were here

About two weeks ago we moved the front bushes over to the garden area to make a little boundary, of sorts. I actually thought to myself, "This will be ok, because they aren't ever going to build on those lots. (Our house is the only one on this cul-de-sac; precisely why we bought it. We were told the other lots had been deeded back to the county and were not to be built on since they were declared as wetlands). The next day I awoke to the sounds of a backhoe working. By 4 pm, the entire lot was cleared, and by 4pm the next day, three more lots were cleared as well. While I have adjusted to it now, the whole process made me ill. The birds flew around frantically all day. The squirrels were totally freaked out. I literally begged the workers to save the three trees along, but not on, our property line. I went so far as to take them cookies, even. Those trees were spared and I hope that the builders will assume they were meant to be. The kids lost their giant sand pile, the woods where their fort was, and where they played for hours at a time. Nothing has been started yet, but we now know that four new homes are slated to be built on the empty lots. This doesn't make sense to me, when there are empty houses that have yet to be sold and the housing market is a mess.