AMHERST, N.Y. (WIVB)- A legal battle is brewing in Amherst over the future of the Westwood Country Club. Just hours before a planned public hearing, site owner Mensch Capital Partners filed a lawsuit against the Town of Amherst and its Board.
The lawsuit claims, among other things, the Town Board convened a number of executive sessions illegally, violating the State’s open meetings law. It alleges the board used those closed-door meetings to come up with a strategy to accelerate the process to ultimately kill the project.
Managing Partner Andrew Shaevel said they need more time before a hearing on rezoning for the project. One of the big hurdles facing the project is coming up with a solution to the burden on the sewer system.
“We need the time to work it out but most importantly the town needs time to work it out,” said Shaevel. “There’s a lot of deferred maintenance and we need to come up with a solution. We believe there is a private-public partnership that can exist that will bring to the forefront some of the solutions.”
They went before a State Supreme Court Judge to have Monday night’s hearing postponed until the Planning Board issues its recommendation for the project. Judge Jospeh Gownia allowed the meeting to go forward as planned.
Town Supervisor Dr. Barry Weinstein said Monday night a hearing on the rezoning will likely wait until December. He said this meeting was about the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement.
Amherst residents took the opportunity to express outrage for hours over the project.
Mensch hopes to transform the 171 acre Westwood Country Club property into a mix of green space, housing and commercial space.
The plans call for single family homes, patio and town homes, apartments and senior living. They also include officer space, a hotel, a fire substation and other commercial development.
Shaevel told News 4 they’ve listened to concerns and increased the amount of green space from 38 percent of the property to nearly 50 percent. It would include pedestrian and bike trails, an athletic field and a new town park.
“I don’t know if you can point to many other developers who have been willing to give up about half of their site for open public green space,” said Shaevel. “I think we have scaled it back quite a bit.”
Residents argued, however, the development will worsen already bad traffic problems, over-burden the sanitary sewer system and is still too big for the site.
“This project is just too intense for this area” said Jennifer Snyder-Haas, who lives nearby. “I don’t think everyone understands that the proposal is to add two new whole roads, North and South and East and West, through the parcel. This would forever change the landscape of Amherst.”
