Dozens of Dobbs Ferry neighbors on Briary Road are fighting to preserve an area near the Juhring Nature Preserve called the Knoll. This comes as a developer is proposing building new houses there.

"It is beautiful as it is. There's no way to make it any more of a gem by adding a road and several structures,” said Adam Eggleston, a resident in that neighborhood.

The Knoll is a grassy area that is known for being a "paper street - a road that only exists on maps but is not an actual paved street. It leads into the woods behind it.

In the woods, there are 12 private, undeveloped lots that border several homes.

For some residents, preserving the Knoll is personal.

Michelle Saint-Victor Torres has been living in her home for 16 years. Her home and Eggleston’s home both directly border the Knoll.

"It's all nature up there. It's untouched. There's a lot of rock back there so imagine the blasting, the drilling and everything that we're going to have to hear when you come back from a hard day of work,” says Saint-Victor Torres.

Earlier this year, Andrew Cortese, a developer with Hillside Street, LLC, submitted a proposal to the village’s planning board to build between two and four new houses there.

But residents have several concerns with the plan.

"Noise, taking away from nature, taking away from habitat of the animals, property values,” said Saint-Victor Torres.

But since the development site in question is a “paper street,” there's been controversy between residents, the developer and the village about whether development can happen on one.

In 2005, the then-Board of Trustees adopted a resolution to “de-map and discontinue” the 41 paper streets in the village.

Residents said in 2010, the village drafted a Vision Plan. In that plan, regarding the Knoll neighborhood, they wrote “take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the formerly mapped paper streets remain off limits to development.”

Residents said the current board claims the 2005 board was "not properly advised on the limitations of their authority and the steps required to obtain and convert to public use."

Neighbors in the Knoll area are challenging the Board of Trustees on the legality of the road.

"There are a number of paper roads within Dobbs Ferry and I think this would set an incredibly dangerous precedent, that if this de-mapped road, this road that never existed, suddenly gets built, we feel like there would just be this onslaught of developers wanting to do the same thing,” Allison Eggleston, a resident in that neighborhood, said.

David Steinmetz, Cortese’s attorney with Zarin & Steinmetz, tells News 12 his client “fully intends” to develop single-family residential homes on those lots.

Steinmetz said Cortese owns one lot and is in contract to acquire three others.

“Our client purchased subdivided lots that were created by and appear on a filed subdivision plat map from 1926. Those lots have the same development rights and constitutional protections as all of the other lots developed in that neighborhood and which appear on that identical plat map,” Steinmetz said in a statement.

Village officials say they’re aware of the residents' concerns. They said the fate of the Knoll has been and remains in the hands of the village Planning Board.