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GREENSBORO — A local developer faced skeptical residents of the Quail Oaks neighborhood Saturday, assuring them he was blindsided when the Urban Loop was routed through their new subdivision and suggesting the road could change course again.

Keystone Group president Scott Wallace told about 50 people his company gave all buyers adequate notice the Urban Loop was planned for that part of northeast Greensboro, but it never knew until recently that an exit ramp redesigned in 2005 had targeted the four-year-old community.

“We did not know this highway had been redesigned from many years ago and, most likely, it has been redesigned many times before, and it’s possible it will be redesigned again,” Wallace said at the specially called neighborhood meeting. “What we understand is that this plan — contrary to what has been reported — is not a finalized plan. It is due to be finalized this summer.”

In fact, the latest plans for the ramp through Quail Oaks — expected to take out about 15 recently built homes — are final, said Mike Mills, the state Department of Transportation’s divisional engineer for Guilford and four other counties.

“As far as I know, they are final,” Mills said in a telephone interview after the 45-minute meeting. “That’s why we had that public workshop back in January. The thing in January was to say, 'Don’t forget this road is coming and here is the new ramp design.’ “

Homeowners remained polite through most of the meeting, but grew testy at times. A number asserted that Keystone sales representatives either did not tell them about the Loop or downplayed it as a potential threat.

Wallace assured them each and every Keystone customer signed a “disclosure” statement acknowledging they knew the Urban Loop would be coming through that part of the city.

“I believe that y’all know more than you are saying you know,” homeowner Lasonja Lane told Wallace. “I feel like the whole thing is a lack of integrity and I have a problem with that.”

Her remark was greeted with applause from the other residents, several of whom described Wallace’s comments as “crap” after the meeting.

Wallace and a business partner in the Quail Oaks project attended the DOT workshop in January. In an earlier interview, the Keystone president said he arrived late and left without a detailed understanding.

Quail Oaks sits at the end of the next section of the Urban Loop, tentatively planned for construction in 2012.

That segment will go from the Loop’s current end at Burlington Road in eastern Greensboro to the new interchange at U.S. 29 near Quail Oaks.

Keystone has been in the news lately because of the Quail Oaks controversy and because one of its townhouse developments in northwestern Greensboro, Liberty Square, also is in the path of a redesigned section of the Loop.

A former Keystone sales manager told the News & Record that Wallace had her remove an alert about the Loop from brochures given to potential customers at Liberty Square, adding that the company preferred to wait until later in the sales process to divulge the road. Wallace denies the allegation.

Wallace told the Quail Oaks crowd his company had acted with integrity, never lied to or misled anyone, but simply was left in the dark about the four-year-old ramp redesign by officials of both state DOT and the city.

“We’re in this together,” Wallace told the residents. “Nobody has reached out from DOT or the city of Greensboro at no time in this process to say to our community that the design of the Outer Loop has changed or (been) redesigned or any way affected any of our current property or home owners.”

The price of miscommunication will be high for taxpayers. In addition to buying houses and several vacant lots worth almost $2 million on tax rolls, DOT also must build Quail Oaks a new access road because the expanded exit ramp will take out part of the subdivision’s main street.

Quail Oaks resident Patricia McBride was among those who bluntly dismissed the Keystone presentation as worthless, especially claims that all buyers had been well informed of the Loop.

“Do you think we would have moved here? I mean, come on, how dumb are we?” said McBride

But residents also were critical of the government, saying local or state officials should have intervened.

“How do you give building permits to a company like that?” asked Chris Cositore, who bought his Quail Oaks home just five months ago.

“They shouldn’t have been allowed to build,” agreed his neighbor Cheryl Mabe, who moved into her new home in September.

As residents questioned Wallace in the meeting, a company attorney said they should redirect their energy to persuading public officials to reroute the Loop away from Quail Oaks.

“If they hear your anger, they may change the road,” said Gavin Reardon, the lawyer.

Never say never, DOT’s Mills said. But he said the DOT hopes this summer to start buying land for the next section of the Loop, including Quail Oaks, a fact that suggests a route all but set in concrete.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com