Council rejects truck stop zoning amendment


Recommends Planning Board put moratorium on truck stops and freight terminal facilities until matter is studied more thoroughly

Planning & Community Development Director Erris Dunston told the Henderson City Council during its regular short meeting yesterday evening that the Planning Board heard a request to allow truck stops and freight transfer facilities in industrial zones within the city on December 7, 2009 and voted unanimously to send the amendment to the council as a recommendation.

The facilities would be a new use, as they are not defined in the current zoning ordinance. City Attorney John Zollicoffer noted that the proposed businesses would be by special use permit only.

When member Mary Emma Evans inquired of Dunston who had made the request, she was told only that “a gentleman” had inquired about the use. Council member Mike Rainey rebuked Evans for the question, stating that the person’s name does not play a part in the decision.

When Henderson Mayor Pete O’Geary opened the public hearing on the issue, he asked for those in favor of the ordinance amendment to speak first. No one approached the podium.

When O’Geary asked for those who would speak against the ordinance, the first to make remarks was former Henderson City Council member Lynn Harper. Harper told member that she and her husband own 46 acres in the city’s industrial zone, and have owned that land since 1974. She asked the council to look at the “long view”, enumerating problems associated with trucks stops including noise, run-off, stiff Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation, explosives, and hazardous waste. She asked the council to wait and “do this in a more logical manner”. She expressed the hope that whoever might propose such a facility come forward and show the city what their footprint would be and what their plan is.

Former council candidate and local government watchdog Lewis Edwards told members that he thinks it unnecessary to change the zoning ordinance. He said that those who have need can request a variance. Citing concerns about hazardous material and environmental problems, he asked that the council wait until the Land Use Plan has been perused and put in place.

Vance businessman Tom Stevenson told the council that he owns a truck stop, but does not object to having another truck stop in town.

Stevenson owns Chex Truck Stop in Middleburg.

Telling members that truck stops are “unique operations”, he gave them background on how they work. He noted that his business undergoes 28 inspections a year. He informed members that although he is unable to stop any trucks from entering his facility, including those carrying nuclear material or medical waste, the EPA has specific guidelines on how those trucks are separated, requiring him to have the room to keep them apart.

Stevenson told members that the Department of Homeland Security and his operation have “a close relationship”.

The local business owner told members that ground pollution from trucks leaking oil is a concern for his business, especially since he is four miles from Kerr Lake. Stating the precautions he takes to prevent water contamination from his property, including the filtering of run-off, he said that he would like to see something in Henderson’s ordinance about pollution.

Stevenson described problems with noise pollution and air pollution stemming from the need to for trucks to idle their engines for climate control within the cabs. He said that various schemes to supply power to trucks so that they need not idle has not yet proved commercially viable.

A heavy truck burns about one gallon of diesel an hour when idling.

Stevenson said a buffer of 1,000 feet between a truck stop and homes is necessary as opposed to the 500 feet called for by the special use section of the ordinance.

After O’Geary closed the public hearing, member Sara Coffey affirmed that what Stevenson had told the council was true, citing her two years of experience in long-haul truck driving. She added that “every truck stop I’ve ever seen has problems with prostitution”, and that drugs go through truck stops as well.

She suggested that the proposed amendment should go back to the Planning Board for review.

Member Mike Rainey defended the Planning Board, of which he is the chair, saying that if all of the information had been presented to the board that it would not have voted unanimously to send the amendment to the council. He agreed with Coffey that the council may want to send the amendment back.

Zollicoffer suggested that truck stops and freight terminals should be severed from each other in future legislation, and that the council recommend to the Planning Board that a moratorium be placed on truck stops so that no one could put one in under a different classification while the respective boards deliberate on the issue.

The Planning Board will take the matter up once again at it’s next meeting in February.