Dozens of Ware residents overflowed a Town Hall meeting room Sept. 5, many of them complaining to the Planning Board about a proposed $3.6 million demolition center that would be the town's largest industrial development in years.
The transfer station would process and recycle bricks, concrete, asphalt, wood and other materials from torn down buildings. It would boost the town's tax base and create as many as 21 new jobs, developer Richard O'Reilly said.
But a number of residents across the Ware River from the property said the project would be more of a nuisance than a benefit. They worried that it would lower property values, damage the quiet at the well-loved Grenville Park, create a fire hazard and send too much commercial traffic through town.
The Planning Board, which held the public hearing to evaluate the project's site plan, had not made a ruling at press time. The board awarded O'Reilly a special permit for the development in April, and a strict state approval process still awaits the project.
Two engineers from the Tighe & Bond Inc.'s Westfield office presented the designs to the board and residents. The transfer station would process up to 750 tons of discarded materials per day, grinding up much of it to resell, and sending the rest to a landfill. It could handle up to 75 tractor-trailer loads of material a day, they said.
"This facility is not going to produce any waste that is hazardous," engineer Thomas Couture said. He emphasized that beginning in 2003, the state will require all contractors to bring waste building materials to a processor like this one planned rather than a landfill. Most of the traffic would come from the east, he said. MassLive