Pontiac

Detroit zoning officials rejected a Pontiac-based company's appeal to allow construction of an asphalt mixing facility in northwest Detroit.

The city's Buildings, Safety, Engineering and Environmental Department denied Asphalt Specialists Inc.'s proposal in November to build a 25-acre facility at 12155 Southfield Freeway, an area south of Interstate 96 near Borman Road that is zoned for intensive industrial use. The company’s attorney, Lawrence Walker, on Tuesday attempted to overturn the decision but the Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously voted to uphold the decision.

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Walker told the board that the Detroit building department and the Industrial Review Committee — an advisory committee to the building department and the board that reviews, recommends and investigates various project components — were to investigate several aspects such as the environmental impacts and reviews of the proposed machinery.

"There are no such reports relative to the Industrial Review Committee and we know that because we asked for them," Walker said. "They failed to make any investigation."

Walker, who requested documentation of the investigation, said that according to a response letter from the building department, city officials did not provide anything in writing. The Industrial Review Committee "only relies on information sent by the client," Walker read from the response letter.

"Well, that's wrong. The Industrial Review Committee is mandatorily required to make an investigation to not only inform you, to inform the city and not just rely on what my client provides to them," Walker said, adding that city officials should have done a deeper evaluation of the project.

However, officials said the project does not fall in line with the city's master plan, which guides projects in the community. City Planner Helen Sharpley said the planning and development department recommended the denial to the building department in November.

"The zoning ordinance allows for a more intensive use than the master plan recommends. The current master plan designation is IL, or light industrial, which includes areas that generally consist of industrial uses of low intensity that have minimal undesirable effects on adjacent residential or commercial land uses," Sharpley said.

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Opponents of the project have, in the past, confused what would be a mixing facility with an asphalt plant or manufacturer, which would involve more intense heating operations that would release particles, according to Walker. The proposed facility would have, instead, mixed and stored asphalt to be delivered to work sites.

The project proposal detailed the process: Cold feed bins would be loaded from stockpiles of on-site aggregate and then fed into a drying drum using a conveyor.

The drying drum would have a natural gas burner on one end to dry the aggregate and rotate to mix the components to form the asphalt, according to the proposal. Air from the drum would then get exhausted to a baghouse, flowing through filters, where more than 99.9% of particulates would be removed.

Filtered air would then exit "out of a chimney stack more than 50 feet tall” and captured particulates would be recycled back to the drum, according to the proposal. Once mixed, the asphalt would then be sent by conveyor to silos to be stored.

Load-out areas for trucks to receive and ship asphalt would have been beneath the silos. The area would have been “enclosed and ducted” to mitigate scents, the proposal shows.

However, operations such as the gas burner and high truck traffic proximity to residents, particularly with health conditions, were a concern to Nick Schroeck, associate dean at the University of Detroit Mercy and environmental law expert.

“There will be some emissions even though they’re going to try to control them with the baghouse. Then there will also be the fugitive emissions when they’re loading it on the trucks. They’re trying to contain some of that odor but there would be some leakage, some odor and some fugitive emissions that could potentially be harmful,” Schroeck said. “Over time, you get higher exposure and that elevates your risk of health consequences.”

Dozens opposed the project Tuesday during public comment before the zoning appeals board and urged officials to uphold the city's decision. Former Detroit Police Commissioner Darryl Brown took aim at the company for doing "whatever they want" in the community.

"Join us in saying, 'No to air pollution, no to groundwater contamination, no to noise pollution. ... Save our lungs, save a tree and protect our children,' " Brown said.

Several others cited concerns of pollutants swarming the air. But Walker questioned the evidence of harmful emissions.

"I heard a lot of, ‘We don’t want because they are polluters.’ But where is the evidence of that? There is no evidence. Not one person said we have documented evidence that this is a polluter or will pollute," Walker said. "There are no harmful emissions."

The Board of Zoning Appeals was scheduled to hear ASI’s appeal on Feb. 15 but adjourned the meeting after failing to provide proper notice of the hearing’s details. Prior to the February meeting, dozens of activists held a news conference urging the board to uphold the city’s decision due to environmental concerns, despite the developer promising jobs such as engineers, managers and drivers.

Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact Dana: [email protected] or 313-635-3491. Follow her on Twitter: @DanaAfana.