Wellington equestrian preserve vote delayed
Developer’s team cancels abruptly, angering many
WELLINGTON — Village residents will have to wait another month to see and comment on Mark Bellissimo’s final version of two luxury residential communities that would be built on land that sits in Wellington’s equestrian preserve.
The Village Council was scheduled Tuesday to start as many as three nights of meetings about the proposals, called The Wellington North and The Wellington South. Bellissimo’s team called out of the meeting an hour before it was set to start.
Village Manager Jim Barnes broke the news to the council in a room packed with residents eager to see the final plans and to comment on the proposals. The abrupt cancellation left many of those residents upset.
“In terms of due process, you should be embarrassed,” Wellington resident Richard Sirota told the council. “This is supposed to be an equal-level playing field.”
Members of the village council voted unanimously to grant Bellissimo’s request for a delay and will review the applications during three nights of meetings scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Nov. 13.
Wellington Lifestyle Partners, the company that would build the two communities, requested more time and the village staff supported the developer’s request to allow more time to review the most recent modifications to the applications, according to a statement on Wellington’s website.
Wellington Lifestyle Partners, led by Bellissimo’s daughter, Paige, has substantially revised its plans since they were first proposed. The most recent came Oct. 2, when it scaled back the number of homes in both sections of The Wellington.
“The postponement is frustrating,” said Doug McMahon, Wellington Lifestyle Partners’ CEO and managing partner, in a written statement Wednesday.
“But it is honestly an outcome of meetings with several groups, individuals and parties that have helped us change our application and dramatically reduce its density, number of residential units and scale. We are respectfully working through and participating in the process.”
Leonard Feiwus, an attorney representing the Equestrian Club Estates neighborhood and other families opposing The Wellington’s residential proposals, took issue with the Village Council permitting substantial changes and granting the developer’s request at the last minute.
“It’s a slap in the face of an insult