Age a Sticking Point Between Residents, Developers

Two Rivers, formerly an age-restricted, 55 and older planned community in Odenton, Md., is opening up to households of all ages, and some long-time residents feel left behind. 

Steve Eckert, CEO and co-founder of Two Rivers developer Classic Group explains, “The residents expressed concern at first because they thought they were buying in an age-restricted community." Indeed, residents Nancy and Bob Pollock were aghast upon discovering that 20 percent of the homes in the community were being opened up to non-age-restricted buyers. “We met with local officials and went to court,” to ensure that homes in the age-restricted neighborhoods remained so, Nancy tells The Washington Post. Eckert says that after the initial concern was registered, Classic Group reviewed the disclosures with residents, “The agreements they had signed when they purchased said this section is age-restricted but future sections may or may not be age-restricted. We’re sensitive to their concerns and pointed out that each neighborhood is self-contained ... We always felt it would be good to create diversity with both age-restricted and conventional neighborhoods.”

Classic Group, developers of Two Rivers, bucked the trend of age restrictions and transitioned part of the previously 55-and-up development into an all-ages community in 2016. The developers, who were approved to build the age-restricted community in 2004, considered converting it entirely to an all-ages development in 2011. After that proposal failed, the development’s modified plan as a combo of all-ages and age-restricted neighborhoods was approved in 2016.

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