Jeff Kaplan appeared before the Wawarsing planning board on behalf of Wawarsing Estates, a project that won approval about 15 years ago. The idea was to build a sizable 55-plus oriented development offering 182 residential units with a pool, garages and other amenities on land on the southeast corner of the junction of Route 209 and Route 44/55.

That approval led nowhere because at that time the great recession was coursing through the economy. The developers sank a million dollars or more into Wawarsing Estates before the bubble burst on the U.S. economy. The planning board revoked approval a few years later because of the lack of action, leaving the Wawarsing Estates dream as nothing but some pipes and culverts in the ground and young trees growing into a new forest.

Now, Wawarsing Estates is back before the planning board trying again – and a lot depended, as Kaplan said on Tuesday evening, on their “vested rights.”

Under town code, developers have two years to build a project once they have approval. That approval can be extended another two years, in six months increments. Time ran out for this project about ten years ago and since then it has been in abeyance. However, the rudiments of infrastructure, like those pipes, were already in the ground.

Kaplan says that “A rule that came out of the court says you can ‘vest’ your approval if you can show significant investment in the project, and that it was in furtherance of a plan and that it would go to waste if the project is not completed.”

The planning board on Tuesday seemed to decide that the Estates plan was adequately vested, and voted once more to approve the Wawarsing Estates plan – or rather, to approve a lapsed approval. The arrival of 182 rental units would be significant for the housing situation in both Wawarsing and Rochester. One nice feature of this plan is that it hooks all its units into the Kerhonkson water system. However, the plan was originally for a senior community, so if the developer wants to change it to open it up to anyone under 55 years of age, there will need to be a new application and amendment of the site plan – considering the drive to build affordable housing across demographics since the original planning, that idea may become tempting.

There is also a possible problem with FEMA, whose floodplain maps have changed since the project was first pitched. More land is now considered susceptible to flooding around the Rondout Creek. However, Town Planner Jonathan Lockman said at the meeting that the changes did not appear to affect this project.