Allan Appel Photo
The site, by the recently built retaining wall on Whalley.
(Updated 12:54 p.m.) Larry Waldorf has been trying for more than a decade to build more than 100 senior homes on a steep swath of land running down from Whalley Avenue to the West River. After a second city denial, he plans to keep trying — in court, not at City Hall.
At Wednesday night’s regular meeting City Plan commissioners voted unanimously to deny Waldorf for a second time.
Waldorf seeks to build his senior complex on undeveloped land sloping down from Whalley near the intersection of Emerson Street. The city originally gave permission to build there back in 1999, but the developer had trouble finding financing, and the permit expired a few years ago. Now the plan has returned to the city — and encountered resistance to renewing the approval.
Despite changes made since Waldorf first appeared before the commission in April, the plan still puts the structure too close to the river with its history of flooding and in a location with serious run offs down a 60-foot drop from the avenue near the intersection of Emerson Street, the commissioners decided.
Click here for a story about a previous denial of the proposal at the April City Plan meeting.
That meant Waldorf (pictured) could come back to pitch yet again. He came back on Wednesday, with changes to the building’s location, additional erosion-fighting plantings, plans to cope with the niagaras of runoff from Whalley, and a new series of catch basins.
Those changes still didn’t do the trick.
City Plan Commission Chairman Ed Mattison said he happened to be at the location during a heavy storm, and the flow scared him. “I’m really afraid that bad things will happen if this project is built this way,” he said.
“I also was at the site during a recent storm, and the flow was still five feet to go to the [Valley Street]” engineer John Torello parried. “Your fears, sir, are really unfounded.”
The presentation included letters from the Federal Emergency Management Administration stating the structure is not in the flood plain, a bone of contention back in April. That failed to allay commissioners’ concerns about erosion and exposure to catastrophic floods.
“I can’t in good conscience vote for something that frightens me,” said Mattison.
His colleagues agreed.
Moments before the vote, Waldorf made a final appeal. “Since you’re about to make a decision that’s going to affect my life,” why, he asked, have you allowed me to spend tens of thousands of dollars on recent studies and expert consultants?
He asserted that both the science and the law are on his side: “You can ‘what if’ anything to death.”
After the unanimous denial, he said, “I’m going to appeal [to Superior Court]. I’ve got my whole life savings tied up in this.”
Waldorf’s attorney, Joseph Rini, argued that the City Plan staff misinterpreted state law about how commissioners can deal with projects that are proposed to be built within 50 feet upland from a wetland. Rini argued that the law does not give regulators the option of simply denying building projects outright, but rather offers the right to add conditions. He argued that the project poses no threat of flooding, but in fact improves drainage at hte site.