Benchmark Team Back in Pleasantville Monday

Development company Benchmark Senior Living will be back in front of Pleasantville's Board of Trustees Monday evening with a 7 p.m. updated presentation.

Representatives from Benchmark delivered a computer-animated version of its proposal to build an 87-unit senior living facility on the property just north of the United Methodist Church on Bedford Road last month.

Related:
Benchmark Delivers Updated Assisted Living Project Proposal
Benchmark to Submit Zoning Petition in Pleasantville
Pleasantville Neighbors Decry Assisted Living Proposal
Assisted Living Facility Proposed in Pleasantville

The Village Board, the project's lead agency, will need to make a State Environmental Quality Review determination and approve a zoning amendment to allow senior housing to be built in Pleasantville's R-PO zone before the site plan can be approved.

Some of the site have been skeptical of the project's size and impact on the area.

At the Board's last meeting, Mayor Peter Scherer acknowledged receiving a petition signed by residents of Foxwood Condominium that objects to the proposal.

The petition, Scherer said, "asserts that a sufficient number of adjacent homeowners have expressed a concern" about the proposal and any zoning change moving forward would therefore "require a supermajority of the board—that would be four out of five instead of three out of five in order to pass such a zoning change."

The petition, a copy of which Patch has obtained, references a provision of the village's zoning code that says a protest to a zoning change signed by 20 percent of residents in the area of the proposal ("extending 100 feet") would require a supermajority vote.

The petition reports receiving signatures from 57 percent of Foxwood Condominium I owners and is signed by the president of the Foxwood Homeowners Association and the present of Foxwood Condominium I, which is across the street from the site.

Scherer said the Board has "some questions about the nature of the petition."

A regular 8 p.m Board of Trustees meeting will follow the presentation Monday.