Tom Gray and his partners have taken 8,000 hectares of former ranchlands in the verdant hills above Carmel and are transforming them into what even some hard-core environmentalists are hailing as in inordinately green housing project. Called the Santa Lucia Preserve, only 350 homes are planned for development in the property. The Santa Lucia Preserve, long in the making, is part of a US trend of developers setting aside more undeveloped land as nature preserves in their tracts.