Unfavorable vote

The local stone quarry’s rezoning request now moves to Portland City Council.

It does so with an unfavorable recommendation from the city’s plan commission.

Portland Plan Commission on Thursday voted 6-2 against U.S. Aggregates’ request to rezone a parcel of land located between county road 100 South and Tyson Road to allow for the expansion of its stone quarry operation.

The unfavorable vote came a few minutes after a motion for a favorable recommendation came in at 4-4. (Five votes are required to pass a motion before the nine member board, which has one seat vacant.)

The rezoning request now moves to city council for a final decision. Council must take up the issue within 90 days. (If the rezoning is approved, the company would then need to seek a variance from Portland Board of Zoning Appeals to allow mining at the site.)

U.S. Aggregates, which initially made an informational presentation to the plan commission in February, is requesting that about 115 acres of land between county road 100 South (Seventh Street) and Tyson Road, east of county road 200 West, be rezoned to industrial from the current agricultural/residential. The company hopes to expand from its current location — 2228 W. 125 South — opening a new quarry site and investing more than $10 million over the next three to five years.

Thursday’s decision came after a 20-minute presentation by U.S. Aggregates, and hour-plus of public comment and discussion amongst the plan commission members.

In presenting the request, area operations manager Eric Reynolds noted that U.S. Aggregates is a supplier for many local projects and businesses, said the company must follow strict state and federal guidelines, and showed overhead photos of similar operations in close proximity to residential areas in Montpelier, Bluffton, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. He emphasized the quarry’s decades of service in the community, previously as Meshberger Brothers and for about the last eight years as U.S. Aggregates.

“We believe that we can be a long-term good community partner for Portland and for Jay County,” Reynolds said.

The 10 members of the public — there were more than 80 in attendance at Jay County Courthouse — who spoke against the project expressed the same concerns they have raised at other recent meetings and in letters to the editor to The Commercial Review. Those include declining property values, quality of life and aesthetic issues, traffic, dust, noise and potential damage from blasting, well water levels, proximity to Jay County Junior-Senior High School and hindering the ability for the city to grow to the west.

“The quality of life of the neighbors should be the main factor when making the decision to rezone this property,” said Carol Johnston, a resident of Rose Drive. “We are not asking the quarry to leave the county. We are only asking that they check other areas in the county … to find the type of stone they need.”

The six who spoke in favor of the rezoning request and the quarry expansion were mostly employees of U.S. Aggregates and other local companies that do business with the stone quarry. They focused on jobs, the economic impact on local businesses such as trucking companies and Ardagh’s glass manufacturing operation, and the increased cost that the county, residents and industries would incur from hauling stone from further away. (It is estimated that the existing U.S. Aggregates site has enough material to operate for another three to five years.)

Jay County Commissioners president Chad Aker also read a letter in support of the rezoning after commissioners approved a resolution to that effect at a special meeting earlier in the day.

“Jay County cannot afford the job losses, lost revenue to businesses, increased costs and potential business closures that (denying the rezoning request) will bring,” Aker read from the letter, noting that the stone quarry was in existence in the area before Jay County Junior-Senior High School and most of the houses in the area were built. “20,000-plus will be negatively affected if the rezoning isn’t approved.”

Letters both for and against the project, some presented in advance to plan commission members and others read at the meeting, covered the same topics.

Before taking its votes, plan commission members asked a handful of questions regarding the city’s master plan, blasting location, plans for a berm around the proposed expansion site and whether a compromise could be reached between U.S. Aggregates and those in opposition to the expansion.

The recommendation to deny the rezoning request was passed with votes from Janet Powers, Lee Newman, Kent McClung, Don Gillespie, Bart Darby and Kyle Cook. Ron Laux and Steve McIntosh opposed that motion.

Darby and Cook had voted in favor of the previous motion to recommend approving the rezoning. Following the meeting, Darby said he made the change simply to get the issue before city council, which has the final say on the matter. Cook said his preference would be to see a compromise reached but that he also took a nod from Powers, McClung and Gillespie, plan commission members who also sit on city council.