by Phil Blackwell
At a public hearing Monday night, nearly 20 residents spoke out on the Highbridge Waterside Commons project, most expressing that the mixed-use retail/residential building is out of character with the village and would create additional traffic challenges.
The meeting was moved to the larger courtroom at the village municipal building to allow for additional capacity given social distancing requirements. Every seat in the courtroom – about 25 in total – was filled.
If built by developer Guy Hart Jr., the $15 million project would occupy a 1.7-acre parcel in the village that has been vacant since 2012. The proposal calls for a five-story building at the corner of Highbridge and East Genesee streets, with 10,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor and 41 apartment units spread over the four floors above.
Bruce King, an architect working on the project, said the target market for the apartments is local residents “downsizing from their homes who still want to stay in the village environment.” Most of the apartments would be one- and two-bedroom units, but the plans call for a few larger penthouse units on the fifth floor.
However, several different aspects of the project drew vocal opposition from a series of speakers at the board meeting, all of them residents.
Several of these speakers brought up the difficulty they had navigating traffic at this busy intersection, and that the project would only make that volume worse. Many expressed concerns over the size of the building.
One resident, Casey Cleary, evoked the village’s small size (it only covers 1.7 square miles) in her opposition.
“A project like this is completely out of character with our village,” said Cleary.
Jason Feulner based his criticism not on the developer’s plans, but its sheer size.
“I applaud the mixed-use approach, but there is little indication that the developer has adapted the central idea to the natural constraints of this parcel,” said Feulner. “It’s too tall and too big. Hopefully a similar but better proposal can be found.”
Other speakers brought up concerns such as flood mitigation and inadequate room for the 121 parking spaces proposed in the plan.
“The change that you’re looking at right now … is just way out of proportion with what the village of Fayetteville should look like,” said Elbridge Kinne, who made his comments over Zoom. “None of the buildings we have around here are anything like that size.”
“I can’t find anyone who thinks this is an appropriate development for the village,” he added. “It’s just unnecessary.”
A few voices of support spoke, too, saying that the vacant property needed some activity and one saying that, if apartments are built, they should take affordability into consideration. Currently, the site sits behind a chain-link fence near the western gateway to the village. Several buildings that were on the site have already been demolished.
The public hearing on Monday was on a zone change that would allow the proposal to move forward. Before that zone change is granted, the board would need to approve a State Environmental Quality Review. If the board grants SEQR approval, Mayor Mark Olson said another public hearing would be called before trustees vote on the zone change.
If the zone change is granted, the village planning board would be tasked with final approval of the site plan.
The meeting marked the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak that the board meeting was both live-streamed on Zoom and open to the public, though the usual mask and social-distancing rules still applied.
“This is uncharted waters,” said mayor Mark Olson. “We’re trying to do our best (with this format), and we do want to hear from the public.”
