A neighborhood’s attempt to block construction of 130 new units at a Lawrence apartment complex was stopped before it started Thursday night.

The Board of Zoning Appeals declined to hear the matter. Members said they didn’t have the authority to review the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission’s approval in August of the final development plan for Meadowbrook Apartments, northwest of 15th Street and Crestline Drive.

Board members indicated they didn’t even want the authority to overturn planning commission decisions.

“If we hear this, we are suddenly going to be the most important and feared board in the city of Lawrence,” said Tim Herndon, the board’s chairman.

But members of the Sunset Hills neighborhood who had appealed the planning commission’s decision were furious.

“These boards are refusing to hear the residents of Lawrence,” said Joyce Claterbos, one of more than 40 neighbors who attended Thursday’s meeting.

Neighborhood residents said the final development plan for the apartment complex’s expansion never should have been approved. They were trying to appeal city staffers’ positive recommendation to the planning commission. They also appealed the decision’s basis on a 1973 preliminary development plan for the area  for which city officials have said they could find no definitive record. Officials believe, based on other city records, the plan likely was adopted.

Neighborhood residents disagreed, but they never got to tell the Board of Zoning Appeals why. Assistant City Manager Dave Corliss told the board there was no authority under city or state law for them to hear the matter.

“The planning commission has sole authority to approve a final development plan, and that’s what they did,” he said.

Corliss said neighborhood residents still could appeal the matter to a court, or they could ask the city commission to amend the final development plan. Some neighbors said court was an unlikely option.

Herndon noted the board usually decided interpretations of city code and approved variances from zoning regulations before those matters would go to the planning commission.

“Our decisions have always come before the actions of the city and planning commissions,” he said. “Never after.”

Board members Mike Goans and Jason Fizell asked that neighborhood residents at least be allowed to make their case that the board had jurisdiction, but their colleagues overruled them in a 5-2 vote. Herndon joined Paul Werner, Les Hannon, Walter Hicks and Scott Henderson in ending the matter.