Gwinnett defers decision on waste station

The Gwinnett County Commission voted Tuesday night to delay a decision on a proposed waste transfer station that has inflamed business owners, redevelopment interests and thousands of members of a Catholic church.

The commission first deadlocked 2-2 on the proposal to grant a zoning change and special use permit to allow the station. The board then agreed to a proposal by Commissioner Mike Beaudreau to delay further consideration until Feb. 3.

That will give incoming commissioner Shirley Lasseter an opportunity to weigh in on the decision. The site is located in the district Lasseter will represent.

The outgoing commissioner, Lorraine Green, did not attend the hearing.

The proposal to build a facility to transfer household garbage and construction debris from smaller trucks to larger, landfill-bound tractor-trailers has attracted opposition from nearby office building owners who fear the project would reduce their property values.

Members of Holy Vietnamese Martyrs Mission, a Catholic church adjacent to the site, fear it would endanger the health of children who attend school there. And the Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District and the city of Norcross both have objected to the plan, saying it would threaten redevelopment efforts.

“I guess we got half a victory,” said Gwinnett Village CID executive director Chuck Warbington.

The site near the intersection of Beaver Ruin Road and I-85 would be an attractive location for the kind of dense mixed-use development county officials are trying to attract to the interstate corridor, according to the CID, and a waste transfer station would make such a project a tough sell.

But Lee Tucker, the attorney representing the developers who want to build the station said its proposed location at the edge of the CID is precisely where a transfer station should go — redevelopment or not.

“It’s at the periphery and it’s at an interchange,” he said.

The church flooded the commission halls with an overflow crowd so large that fire marshals had to ask that aisles be cleared during the hearing and county officials had onlookers watch the proceedings on monitors outside the chambers and in a nearby room.