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Saturday, February 7, 2009
Waste transfer site heavy on Norcross
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bert Nasuti did a little research the last time an applicant proposed putting a waste transfer station in Gwinnett County.
The commissioner paid a visit to a facility near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He hung out inside the facility as well as on its grounds. He observed garbage trucks of all types and sizes — “about one every 10 minutes when I was there” — line up, idling and waiting for the chance to unload.
“The smell in the area, outside, was pretty bad because of the trucks coming in and out all day,” Nasuti told me in an e-mail. “There isn’t really a way to regulate or condition the smell of what comes in. Technology inside the building can do a lot. They had sprayers that were like giant misters dropping a real strong Lysol-type smelling substance. But they couldn’t do much with the trucks outside, and the coming and going.”
On Tuesday, the Gwinnett County Commission voted 3-2 to approve a waste transfer facility at Beaver Ruin Road and Shackleford Road.
The majority did so even though the Planning Commission advised against rezoning nine acres near I-85 and Beaver Ruin Road from light industrial to a heavier industrial category.
They did so despite objections from area business and property owners, notably the Holy Vietnamese Martyrs’ Catholic Church, a 4,000-member congregation adjacent to the site for the proposed garbage facility.
It’s safe to say few would want a waste transfer station as a next-door neighbor. Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charles Bannister got one thing right: There’s nowhere in the county to locate such an operation and not have it opposed. Yet the county has to meet state and federal regulations regarding trash while it produces more and more of it.
Surely there’s a better way, a better location, for a waste transfer station than this Norcross spot.
Primarily, the area is zoned for light industrial and warehouse-type operations. If the facility is built, those businesses will have the privilege of seeing a steady stream of garbage trucks come and go.
If it’s built, chances of high-end revitalization — something the county has touted for the area — will undoubtedly suffer, upstaged by garbage trucks.
Norcross city officials, along with the Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District, opposed the project.
“The decision was not the best for the community, and it’s a [special zoning] use that is unlike any use in that area,” said Chuck Warbington, the CID’s executive director. “There is a huge difference between light industrial zoning for offices and warehouses and heavy industrial use, which a facility like this would require.”
Then there’s the Holy Vietnamese Martyrs’ Catholic Church. The working-class immigrants raised $1.7 million to buy the property — an old car dealership — and fixed it up. The congregation plans to stay put and expand, according to Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory.
Nasuti didn’t criticize commissioners Bannister, Shirley Lassiter and Kevin Kenerly for their decision on Tuesday. Zoning matters, he wrote in an e-mail, are the toughest issues officials deal with.
On this one, Nasuti said he cast an opposing vote for several reasons, including what he observed a few years back at the garbage facility near the airport. (Commissioner Michael Beaudreau joined Nasuti in opposing the project.)
“I just felt that the truck traffic and smell issues were too much,” Nasuti wrote. “… You know — trash is trash.”
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