ST. PETERSBURG - Cecile Paul and her husband have lived near the tree-studded land at Ninth Avenue N and 66th Street since 1961.

They were there when the war with developers started. Now they're seeing it end, with plans for a senior housing village - the first time neighbors haven't organized to quash the land's development.

"It's going to be something, so this is what we'd like it to be," Paul said.

It was the 1970s, when Cecile Paul was in her 30s, that folks banded together to fight a shopping center and office park. A girls' academy had been on a corner of the property, but this was different: more concrete, more asphalt, more traffic.

Hers was an "old-fashioned American neighborhood" with ball games and picnics and horror houses on Halloween. They helped raise each other's kids; they could organize resistance. More than 340 people signed a petition to oppose the zoning change. "We really worked together and shot it down," she told the newspaper later.

In 1986, they were at it again, battling a plan for senior housing that included two seven-story apartment buildings, an adult living center and a nursing home.

That time, they got official, forming the Hands Across the Field Neighborhood Association. As protest letters stacked up on city officials' desks, developers never even filed an application to rezone the land.

By the time Sembler Co. was again pitching a shopping center in the middle of the last decade, neighbors had stacked up more than 30 years of wins.

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg bought the property in the 1950s, before there were paved roads. Asphalt stopped at Fifth Avenue N and 58th Street.

"People thought we were crazy for buying it," said Steve Zientek, the diocese's real estate and planning manager since 1982.

It built schools in the 1960s, then completed a regional office for the diocese in the early 1970s. In 1972, developer Mel Sembler approached neighbors with the ill-fated proposal to build a Publix shopping center. It met the same end as an '80s attempt by the church for senior housing.

Of the decades of disputes, Zientek will only say, "Good grief." No one, it seems, wants to disrupt the recent calm by stirring up vitriol past.

"I will not bemoan that journey. I will just rejoice in its current state," he said.

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Even Lance Lubin, president of the Eagle Crest Neighborhood Association, says the past is the past.

A mere four years ago, he was the public face of the last battle. It might have been the fiercest.

In 2006, Sembler Co. asked the city for rezoning of 18 acres for townhomes, offices and retail space. Though city staff had pointed out an abundance of nearby commercial property, the city said yes.

"We went berserk," Lubin said.

Lubin's ties run deep - he grew up in the neighborhood, two blocks from where he now lives. He also happens to attend Temple Beth-El, the same as Sembler Co. executives Mel Sembler and Craig Sher.

"We were just on absolute opposite ends of this," he said. "It was quite a struggle."

Sembler had already downsized its plan, more than once. But in 2007, the Eagle Crest Neighborhood Association appealed to the state and sued in Circuit Court. Garden Manor, where the Pauls live, and at least five other neighborhoods kept up pressure. The state denied the neighbors' appeal. But by then, the economy had shifted.

Sembler Co. looked for another idea. It could have walked away from the property. Instead, it connected the diocese with developer Bill Howell, and a plan for a "continuing care residential community."

"It's in our back yard and in our neighborhood," said CEO Greg Sembler, whose father tried to develop the land in the '70s. "That's why we're sticking with it to the very end."

This time, apartments, assisted living and nursing care would be no more than three stories. A bank branch, medical office and day care replaces any whisper of shopping. Traffic would be directed away from homes.

Neighborhood leaders sat down with Howell and City Council member Herb Polson in January. The neighbors offered their tentative approval. Votes await, by the city and county. Promises must be kept. But signs, petitions, lawsuits, they're all gone.

"All things considered, we're actually quite pleased," Lubin said.

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Cecile Paul, 75, and her husband, Joseph, 76, aren't sure they'll still be in the neighborhood by the time the land is developed.

Their four kids are grown. They're getting older. They're ready to move from their 1,800-square-foot 1950s ranch. Perhaps into an apartment.

Finally, development looks like a pretty good idea.

"I think the land will be put to very good use. It won't be far to go. I need it," Paul said.

Times news researcher Will Gorham contributed to this report. Becky Bowers may be reached at bbowers@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8859.