The Planning Board denied Empire Recycling owner Joseph Motzkin's proposal to expand his business despite his plans to install noise barriers in response to neighbors' concerns.
Board members were divided on the issues and voted 3 to 2 against the proposal, which called for adding a second building to the Sterling Road recycling plant.
Board Member Steve Hart abstained from the vote because he was not present for the first hearing on the project.
Motzkin will not put up noise barriers at the plant because his expansion proposal was denied.
Residents' chief complaint was the early morning daily noise at the recycling plant, coming from trucks leaving and coming back to dump newspaper on site.
"It's just unfortunate," Motzkin's attorney, Jim Dangora, said after the meeting. "Everything stays exactly the way it is."
Board Member Richard Tortola and Chairman Paul Marasco voted for the expansion, saying Motzkin has done everything he can to address complaints from Swanson Meadows and other Rangeway Road residents.
"You did move into this neighborhood," Tortola told the neighbors, noting Empire Recycling was in operation before Swanson Meadows was built.
"I do see some bitter feelings from the audience but this man is trying to do the best he can," Marasco said. "I don't think anyone can try as hard as he did to be a good neighbor in this town."
Jeff Austin, a sound engineer for Shock Vibration Acoustics of Framingham, showed the board tentative plans for sound barriers along the outer wall of the paper plant, facing Swanson Meadows. The plans also call for special noise absorbing pads for inside the plant, to stop ground vibrations from dumpsters hitting the ground.
"The approval of the building makes this entire area better," Dangora said.
Board Members Sal Pasciuto, Ed McLaughlin and John Saulnier opposed the project, saying residents' concerns, including noise from a new plant in addition to noise they hear at the existing paper recycling plant, and complaints of existing practices weigh too heavy against approval.
"It just keeps going on and on," said Pasciuto. "We're always rushing to fix it when we want something new."
"It's too invasive on the neighbor right now," said McLaughlin after the meeting about why he voted against the proposal.
McLaughlin said he did not think noise barriers would make the noise problem disappear in the area.
"It doesn't mean we can continue to put more noise in our neighborhood," he said.
Residents continued to express their concern about additional noise, but also questioned business practices and the legality of the proposal.
"Proposed 65 trucks a day is only going to bring more noise. I don't care how far away it is," said Michelle Baia of Rangeway Road.
Gail Koenig of Rangeway Road told the board that a strong odor in the area on Aug. 1 was making people at Swanson Meadows sick.
"It was so bad we could not go out of our building," she said.
Residents said they called the Fire Department, which sent firefighters to check the area. According to a Fire Department report, the odor was coming from a garbage truck that had been left inside the Empire Recycling plant all day.
Koenig also brought the board pictures of trash stacked outside the building. After the meeting McLaughlin said he had driven by the plant on different occasions and had seen trash outside its doors.
Dangora said Motzkin's business does not include processing garbage.
He said the issue was a Board of Health issue, not a Planning Board issue.
Ed Wallace of Rangeway Road told the board the town's official zoning map, approved at the 2003 Spring Town Meeting, says Motzkin's plant is on land that is half zoned residential and half zoned industrial. The split runs diagonally through the property, cutting through the building.
Dangora said the 1955 zoning map has the line 300 feet over, making the residential property on the site smaller and not including the existing building. Marasco said the zoning map discrepancies do not affect the public hearing on the proposed building because both the new and the old zoning maps record the proposed site as industrial property.
"This entire operation runs in an industrial zone," Dangora said.
Motzkin proposed a second building on an abutting parcel of land that would have been combined with Empire Recycling's lot if the project were approved. The two parcels have different owners; Classic LLC owns the existing plant parcel, while Motzkin owns the proposed plant parcel. The proposed second building, shown, as 400 feet from the nearest condominium in Swanson Meadows, would have housed a plastics, bottles and cans recycling plant. Motzkin said the plant would not cause the same amount of noise and would not open as early in the morning as the paper plant. Dangora also said the existing building would serve as a noise buffer for the new building. – Billerica Minuteman