Despite vocal opposition from some neighbors, plans for an assisted living building for senior citizens to be built next to Edina's Colonial Church have cleared the city Planning Commission and are set to go before the City Council next week.

After almost five hours of debate, plans for The Waters Senior Living of Edina won Planning Commission approval on a 7-1 vote. The discussion included appeals from residents who said the development would ruin their quiet neighborhood as well as from Edina seniors who support the development as a way for aging residents to stay in the city when they can no longer manage their single-family homes.

In the end, most commissioners rejected arguments that the $40-million-plus development would violate the intent of the city's comprehensive plan and that it would spoil the area for neighbors. The decision, Chairman Michael Fischer said, came down to whether the project was the proper scale and in the right place, and whether it would benefit Edina.

For him, the answer was "yes" to all three questions.

By giving seniors another housing option, he said, it could open up single-family housing for young families. In response to neighborhood objections that the building was too tall, the developer cut its planned height from four stories to three and pared down the size from 150 units to 139. Architectural features were added to the facade to make the building less block-like in appearance, and the developer pledged to plant more than 800 trees to screen the structure.

Fischer and other supporters pointed out that the project would be built on a parking lot that is bordered on three sides by Hwy. 62, Countryside Park and a fire station, providing a buffer between the new building and single-family homes. That's an ideal location for a senior development, they said.

But critics from the Countryside neighborhood remain firmly opposed to the development, which the commission accommodated by recommending a change in the site's zoning from residential to a classification that allows convalescent homes.

Barbara Hoganson said the "massive" building does not belong in her serene residential neighborhood. Her group distributed 250 lawn signs against the project, and she said she has 350 people on an e-mail list that distributes updates about The Waters.

Not all of them are from the area near the proposed development. The effort to defeat the project drew a few residents from other parts of Edina, including people who live near other churches that own plots of vacant land that they fear could be developed. The zoning change approved by the commission, however, only covers the site where The Waters would be built.

"We feel like this is a bad policy precedent," Hoganson said.

The group, which has retained legal counsel, is "contemplating legal action" if the plan goes through, she said. "We hope that's not the case, but we tried and we're just not being heard."

Dan Rasmus, the residents' attorney, said at the commission meeting that the project is too big and would "radically change this neighborhood." He argued that with rentals starting at about $3,000 a month, seniors who live in the immediate neighborhood could not afford to live there. He said the additional traffic would make the area less safe for park users and others.

But supporters testified, too.

Chet Springer, 81, lives in the townhouses that are to the west of the building site, and, he said, "My neighbors fought [the construction of] Colonial Church, too. Many of us older folks want to stay in Edina. ... It would be nice to know that we could remain in Countryside as we age."

Mike Lewis told the commission that he and his wife lived in Edina for 52 years before moving to Eden Prairie five years ago "because we couldn't find anything that worked for us." Lewis said his and his wife's families stretch back three generations in Edina.

"I'm not 80 years old yet but I'm creeping up on it, and I'd like to come back to Edina," he said.

Planning Commission member Julie Risser voted against the project, saying that she did not like the changes to the city's comprehensive plan and zoning.

"I think it will leave many residents of Edina wondering what their city code means, what zoning means," she said. "Is it something that will be there next week or next month? This is really something we should honor."

The Waters would offer a range of services for residents, from assisted living to memory care. The developer, Waters Senior Living, has proposed that 20 percent of the units be for low-income seniors. The developer likely will seek some kind of city subsidy to make that happen.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380