Concerned residents from the Plymouth Exchange Neighborhood Association told city officials the $27 million housing project on South Plymouth Avenue will resemble a "prison" or a gated community where the "haves" are separated from the "have-nots," if it is built according to current plans.

Residents, most of whom initially supported the Riverview Apartments development, accused the developer and city officials of building something that is dramatically different than what the developer presented to them in a community meeting last February. A fence around the parameters of the site with a gated entrance that blocks public access to the river was a major concern to residents who called for the meeting with City Hall.

"We were told that this would not be a gated community," said Gloria Edmonds, a resident of the area. "Obviously the voice of the PLEX [Plymouth Exchange Neighborhood Association] doesn't matter and that's how it is."

The public can get to the bike trail that runs along the river by going around the complex, but not through it, developer John Yurtchuk of Matrix Development Corporation said. It is important to understand that unlike Brooks Landing, the Riverview Apartments is private property, he said.

"This is not a public-private venture," Yurtchuk said. "There's no public money involved with this project. This is all funded through private investment, and it is essentially private property. I can't go through your back yard, and you can't go through mine."

The preliminary site plans called for 120 riverfront apartments on the former site of the Spronz Metal plant. Five buildings, three- and four-stories high, will house 400 University of Rochester students. Through an agreement with the developer, Riverview Equity will lease the apartment complex to the UR for five years with renewable options and the right of first refusal to purchase the property.

Residents also complained that the entrances to the buildings closest to Plymouth Avenue presented in the preliminary site plan were removed, along with sidewalks from the building to the street. This gives the appearance, they said, that the backs of the buildings will be facing Plymouth - an unattractive view for the public. Security bars were also added to first-floor windows.

"That just isn't right, and it was not what you presented to us on that night in February," Edmonds said.

"The question I have addresses the city," said Judi Baker, another Plymouth Exchange resident. "What I want to know is the who, what, where and why? Who made these decisions and why were they approved without anyone talking to us first?"

To accommodate the development, the city changed the zoning at a public hearing last spring from single-family residential to multi-family. No other public hearings were held or are scheduled in the future for the project. The preliminary site plans were reviewed only for urban design guidelines, said Art Ientilucci, the city's director of zoning. Site-plan approvals in Rochester, he said, are at his discretion only and do not require a public hearing. Developers can hold their own community meetings with residents, which is what Yurtchuk did. But it may have contributed to some confusion for residents about how changes were made to the plans, said Ientilucci.

"We made some recommendations, primarily to the two buildings closest to Plymouth Avenue," Ientilucci said. "We asked that they be moved closer to the street."

The initial plan had the buildings in the middle of the lot directly behind the three buildings on the river, which Ientilucci said created a mass of buildings that blocked views of the water.

"And we didn't want the parking to be in front of the building, so that the first thing that you saw from Plymouth was a parking lot," he said.

The original site plan, Ientilucci said, always showed a fence around the apartment complex.

Ientilucci and Yurtchuk said they were not expecting the combative tone of the meeting. At one point, City Councilmember Adam McFadden walked out, critical of how city employees were responding to concerns from residents. A few minutes later most of the residents left, too.

But in a later phone interview from his Buffalo office, Yurtchuk said some residents returned to the meeting. And he agreed with them to make changes to the site plans before proceeding any further.

Yurtchuk said he removed doors and porticos from the Plymouth Avenue side of the buildings because they would be redundant. Residents, he said, would not perceive those sides of the buildings as the front entrances.

"We assumed that most residents will enter the buildings from the parking lot in the center of the complex," he said. "We just assumed that people would want the convenience of entering their building from a point that is closest to their car; that they wouldn't want to walk all around the building."

But doors and porticos will be returned to the Plymouth Avenue side of the buildings as the original site plan indicated. And no safety bars will be used on the first-floor windows, Yurtchuk said. Both sides of the buildings will look the same in appearance and composition.

A network of pedestrian sidewalks will lead from the apartment entrances to Plymouth Avenue and there will not be keyed gates at those entrances.

But he stopped short of suggesting that residents should be able to cross through the apartment complex grounds to access the riverfront trails.

"I don't want to leave the impression that people can use this site as a public space," he said. "We have students who are paying to live here and we have to consider their privacy and security needs."

Yurtchuk said the old site plans will be revised to reflect the changes, and another meeting with the Plymouth Exchange neighbors will be held during the next two weeks. The date has not been determined.