ANSONIA — The city’s planning and zoning commission unanimously voted Monday to add ‘rock crushing’ as an approved use in industrial zones, subject to a number of caveats.
Assuming there isn’t another lawsuit filed (neighbors have two claims pending in court), the vote brings an end to more than a year of conflict between Burns Materials on Riverside Drive and residential neighbors living in the area of N. Westwood Road. The neighbors complained of noise, dust and vibrations from the rock-crushing activities happening at 16 Riverside Drive, a property Burns purchased for $2 million in 2019, according to property tax records.
Furthermore, the neighbors, who eventually hired a lawyer to plead their case to Ansonia, pointed out that Ansonia’s zoning regulations do not list rock-crushing as an allowed use.
Therefore, the use is not allowed. Two land-use lawyers and a former zoning official told The Valley Indy last month the neighbors’ interpretation is correct. The Cassetti administration and Burns Materials have argued the use is allowed.
Burns Materials — and then Mayor David Cassetti’s administration — proposed adding rock crushing to the zoning regulations, on which a contentious public hearing was held Sept. 20.
During that hearing, Burns submitted environmental tests showing dust from the rock-crushing activities isn’t a health threat to neighbors. City Economic Development Director Sheila O’Malley introduced an engineer who said Burns is a top-shelf company doing a great job keeping an eye on their Riverside Drive construction yard.
City officials pointed out several times during the public hearing that Burns Materials is a top 10 taxpayer in Ansonia. O’Malley and a few Republican Aldermen accused Democrats running for office as playing politics with the issue, citing the fact the Democratic candidates for office wrote a letter to the editor opposing rock crushing. Democrats said they were simply trying to help Ansonia residents.
At Monday’s meeting, Ansonia Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman Jared Heon walked the commission through a zoning text amendment that added rock crushing to Ansonia’s industrial zones.
In addition to adding the term rock crushing, the new language adds hours of operations for no more than two crushers — Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The activity is not allowed on the weekends or on state or federal holidays.
The rock crushers themselves can’t be less than 200 feet from a residential zone.
Rock crushing is allowed in industrial zones through a special permit application — a bureaucratic move that gives the P&Z more control over the application.
Rock crushing can’t happen on any industrial property less than 10 acres, and the rocks and road materials crushed must come from outside the property, then carted off.
Members of the P&Z said they saw the vote as the best compromise to a tough situation.
