industry – Enviro Updates

Kevin McCallum, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A judge this week blocked Santa Rosa officials from requiring an asphalt plant to get a use permit for equipment installed more than a decade ago.

The city has long maintained the BoDean Co. did an array of work at its Maxwell Drive facility between 2005 and 2007 without the proper permits.

BoDean officials have countered that their special status as a facility that predates and is therefore exempt from current residential zoning code meant they either didn’t need any permits for such work, or didn’t need the more in-depth use permits. Such permits require a prolonged process that can involve hearings before the Planning Commission and restrictions on uses of the property.

This week, however, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge René Chouteau, a former city attorney, sided with BoDean, ruling that the asphalt plant, which has been operated continuously since the 1950s, had vested rights that the city needed to respect.

Matt Brown, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The city of Petaluma and a coalition of environmental groups Monday asked a three-judge panel to rehear its appeal challenging Sonoma County’s approval of the Dutra Materials asphalt plant along the Petaluma River just south of city limits.

In a unanimous ruling last month, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco affirmed the 2011 judgment of Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Rene Chouteau, who found the county’s air quality analysis of the project was adequate and that open meeting laws had been followed.

The plaintiffs contend that the appeals court did not properly rule on the environmental and procedural questions.

via Critics of Petaluma asphalt plant proposal seek rehearing | The Press Democrat.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: industry

Santa Rosa asphalt plant wins final round in prolonged court fight

Critics of Petaluma asphalt plant proposal seek rehearing