A State Supreme Court ruling (see below) appears to clear the way for an Aldi store at the corner of North Winton and Blossom roads in the North Winton Village neighborhood.
The City of Rochester’s Zoning Board approved the store late last year, over the objections of some in the North Winton and Browncroft neighborhoods who said that the store would be too big and out of step with the urban-village character of the area.
A group calling itself Rochester Eastside Residents for Appropriate Development, along with IGATOPSFY, LLC, sued the city, the Zoning Board, the city’s Planning Commission, Aldi, and other parties to try to stop the store.
The groups said that the project didn’t get an adequate environmental review, and that variances granted for the project and for the store’s parking are in violation of the city’s zoning code.
State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Stander in his April 28 decision dismissed some of the petitioners’ claims outright because they lacked the standing to make them, he said.
Stander rejected the requests to annul the project approvals that were granted by the Zoning Board and the Planning Commission.
“The record contains sufficient evidence to find that the [Zoning Board’s] determination to grant the area variances was rational and not arbitrary,” the ruling says.
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2016.
So, “We don’t have a grocery store in the city. We are a food dessert. Whaaaaaaa. Oh, wait you want to build one? Not here this is the oasis of the food dessert.”
IGATOPSFY, one of the parties trying to stop the Aldi store, is a “limited liability corporation” registered with an address of 400 Andrews Street, Rochester, NY. In what may be one of the most amazing coincidences ever, that same address is the locale for a number of “limited liability corporations” bearing the name “Flaum” and “Flaum Management.”
In another shocking coincidence, the party that stands to lose the most economically from the construction of the new Aldi store is none other than David Flaum who owns a plaza that runs a Tops that will likely be run out of business after the new Aldi owns. Actually it’s Flaum’s kids that own the plaza (no doubt for tax reasons and also to help Flaum get under New York State’s relatively low estate tax limit that, when breached, would produce a huge estate tax liability). From the D&C story: “That was a concern of David Flaum, CEO of Flaum Management, which manages the plaza that his children own. In an affidavit, Flaum said that the opening of an Aldi store raised “a very serious risk” that Tops would choose not to renew its lease.”
I’m sure David Flaum can just throw some more money around town to prevent the Aldi from being built. Aldi is light years more price competitive than Tops when it comes to groceries and addresses the supposed “food desert” issue within the city of Rochester, but the way politics work in the city of Rochester, it’s the size of the contribution check and subsequent influence pedaling that really counts.