Property owners in Sunset Heights are at loggerheads over what to do next after a petition drive designed to create minimum lot sizes in the neighborhood was halted.

At the end of a two-hour meeting of Sunset Heights property owners last Sunday, longtime resident Tom Brinkley urged those in attendance to drop their differences and decide what's best for all.

"We need to stop this bickering," said Brinkley, who has lived on East 26th Street for 47 years. "I love this neighborhood and I want to be able to be friends with all of my neighbors. I've known some of you people for years. We've got to get this behind us and come together to do what's best for everyone."

During a meeting that included bickering among residents on both sides of a contentious issue, about 40 residents — along with City Council members Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, Toni Lawrence and Peter Brown — recapped what was decided earlier this month, when the city's Planning Commission voted 7-6 not to send an application for minimum lot size requirements to City Council for debate.

The commission's Jan. 5 vote, which came after two public hearings on the issue, killed what many in the neighborhood viewed as an effort to preserve the community atmosphere of Sunset Heights and prevent undesirable development.

Others claimed it was a violation of property rights and an effort by some in the community to tell others what they can do with their land.

In November 2005, a number of Sunset Heights residents, led by resident Travis Bohmann, began circulating a petition to residents regarding a proposed ordinance that would have created a minimum lot size of 6,000 square feet in the neighborhood.

The proposed ordinance would have essentially prohibited the splitting of 6,000-square-foot lots into smaller lots, which allows developers to build two homes on a lot.

The ordinance would have affected a 34-block area between East 23rd and East 26th streets and between Courtlandt and North Main.

About 120 residents signed the initial petition, but many later signed an "anti-petition," dated Dec. 11, that was circulated by Sunset Heights property owner Joe Colangelo.

Some residents claimed that they were misled by the initial petitioners, a charge those petitioners have denied.

Colangelo, who hosted Sunday's meeting, reiterated that many residents did not know what they were signing when they initially lent their support to the minimum lot size petition.

But supporters of the initial petition claimed it was Colangelo who manipulated and confused residents into signing the anti-petition. It stated, among other things, that "property values will drop substantially" if the ordinance passed.

Colangelo said he got the owners of 81 lots in the neighborhood to sign the anti-petition. Many of those who did also wrote letters to the Planning Commission stating that they no longer supported the ordinance.

But those letters, all dated before the commission's Jan. 5 meeting, were not put into the record by Planning Department staff, and were not included in a count used by the department to determine community support for the ordinance.

Whether or not the anti-petitions were gathered using valid or manipulative information, the commission found a lack of "sufficient support" for the initiative to pass it on to council.

Anthony West, a petition supporter, said accusations that petitioners manipulated residents by telling them their property values would go down or their taxes would go up unless the ordinance passed were not true.

"Nobody was ever lied to or misled by our group," West said. "We didn't even talk about taxes and there is no evidence that property values go down because of prevailing lot sizes."

Petition supporters also argued that Colangelo, who himself has applied with the city to have a number of the lots he owns in Sunset Heights subdivided, had made an effort to divide the neighborhood to gather support for the anti-petition.

In a letter distributed to residents and dated Jan. 6, Colangelo stated that "Travis (Boumann) and Adam (sic) (West) have shown that they don't care about you."

"The fact is that a lot of people were poisoned," Colangelo said. "We have testimony from 30 people who say they were misled. There were 150 lot owners who said there was something wrong."

Meanwhile, the scope of the proposal, 34 blocks, was viewed by many as too large.

Supporters of the initial petition see the large-scale minimum lot size ordinance as dead. They said they will now focus their efforts on getting smaller-scale ordinances passed in the area.

"Neighbors can still form petitions for their own blocks," West said.