Nassim Benchaabane | Post-Dispatch

UNIVERSITY CITY -- A controversial proposal to build apartments on a rare forested plot appears a long way from approval here after a city advisory panel said the project could worsen flooding along the River Des Peres.

Last week, the city stormwater commission declined to greenlight the project. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District said the developer hadn't submitted formal plans for review before the commission meeting, as expected. And Mayor Terry Crow said he wants the developer to provide data the commission had requested but didn't get.

Now the decision is in the hands of the city council, which meets Monday and has authority to approve the project.

"We won the battle," said environmental activist Don Fitz, on the stormwater commission's decision. "But we haven't won the war."

Developer William James Capital, which did not comment for this story, wants to build just over 100 townhomes, anchored by a coffee shop and pickleball courts, at 7701 Canton Avenue, on what is now 11 acres of woodland owned by United Hebrew Cemetery -- one of the last tracts of undeveloped land in University City.

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The proposal, called The Enclaves at Canton Avenue, would feature two-story homes that each have a single-car garage facing the street. The project would also include a roughly 900-square-foot coffee shop facing Canton Avenue and 222 surface parking spaces.

But dozens of area residents raised concerns that swapping an urban oasis of trees and soil for more pavement could worsen flood risks in nearby neighborhoods and elsewhere along the upper River Des Peres. The watershed has repeatedly experienced devastating flash flooding in recent decades, including in July 2022, when record-shattering rainfall struck the region.

The city stormwater commission, an advisory body made up of volunteers with relevant expertise, reviewed the proposal at monthly meetings in August and September before voting Oct. 7 to recommend the council reject the plan, citing "potential adverse effects" and "insufficient data."

Susan Armstrong, a commissioner, said Friday that the panel wanted more data about the current stormwater flow and sewer capacity at the forested site in order to compare it to stormwater flow after the apartments would be built.

"We voted that we did not have the before and therefore we can't calculate the after -- in an area that has already documented flooding," Armstrong said.

City officials had also expected MSD would conduct a formal review of the apartment plans before the stormwater commission meeting, to update a preliminary review from 2023 that identified potential stormwater and wastewater impacts.

A final review is needed to ensure the apartment complex won't create excess stormwater runoff, before the agency can give the developer a permit, MSD spokeswoman Bess McCoy said Friday. But the developer had not yet submitted formal plans.

Crow, the mayor, told the Post-Dispatch he was concerned that the commission said it didn't have all of the drainage data it needed. He said the city could request that information and another commission review before the council would discuss it.

"If people in our community would like more information to be provided to them, we would like more information to be provided to them," he said.

Opponents, meanwhile, said they were waiting for the city's next discussion on the plan.

"We're watching," Fitz said.

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U. City apartment proposal in limbo. Developer failed to provide data, mayor says