Town Board approves Fairfield zoning,
attorney general sues developer

The hotly contested Fairfield Place has received rezoning approval, but will still have to go before the Parma Town Board one more time before continuing on to the town's planning board.

In the town board meeting Tuesday evening, the town board voted to approve the SEQR findings for the project with one amendment: the applicant would offer to design a preferred townhome location within the medium density zoning. This was added to ensure that the project's single family homes are located adjacent to the single family homes that already exist on Manitou Road.

The town board also approved rezoning the property to medium density. The board did not approve rezoning to allow for town homes and apartments, and instead pushed that to the next board meeting, citing a need to receive a justification as to what percentage of the development would need to be apartments and town homes. The plan submitted by the developer had 50 percent town homes and apartments.

Outside of the town board meeting, Fairfield Place is still coming under attack. Supervisor Rick Lemcke said issues surrounding the lawsuit between the State Attorney General's Office and the Army Corps of Engineers regarding whether or not the property should be designated national wetlands does not impact zoning. Now, the State Attorney General's Office has also filed a suit against the developer. In a letter dated April 28 from Lisa Feiner, assistant attorney general, to Richard Tallman, developer, Feiner writes, "It appears there was an unlawful discharge of fill material, and anticipated further discharge of fill material, by the Land Company into waters of the United States without a permit ... the waters include wetlands."

Tina Brown, of NO RIP (No Re-zoning in Parma), said Lemcke and his colleagues should have taken this recent legal action into consideration. "They need to base their decision on an accurate environmental impact study and this one isn't accurate because of the wetlands issue," said Brown.

If the Fairfield Place project becomes a reality it will be the first senior housing and first apartment complexes in the Town of Parma. It would bring sewers to the area that could help encourage the development of more commercial enterprises on Ridge Road.

"I think as a town board we are making the best of an inevitable situation," said Lemcke.

The proposed residential development calls for building apartments, town homes, patio homes, senior housing and single family homes on a site located on the west side of Manitou Road, just north of Ridge Road West. In total it would be 599 units on a 140-acre lot.