Declaring that the city's zoning officer may have acted prematurely when he ordered Pond View Recycling to cease and desist operations, members of the city’s Zoning Board of Review voted unanimously to overturn the 2 1/2-year-old order. (See March Cover Story for more information on Pond View Recycling)
The move came at the end of a 4 1/2-hour hearing, in which members rejected a request from a lawyer for two neighboring homeowners to intervene in the case, saying they failed to provide proof that they would be aggrieved parties who would have been hurt by any decision they might make.
Explaining his vote, member Patrick T. Caine said he was troubled by several aspects of the original order issued by Zoning Officer Edward Pimentel, including the charge that Pond View's owner had failed to erect a landscaped earthen berm around a grinding machine to cut down on noise, as had been originally agreed to when he received a variance from the board in 1998.
While Pimentel said he did not see a berm when he visited the property during the months before issuing the cease and desist order in December 2000, Zoning Board Chairman Eugene Saveory said he specifically recalled seeing one on a previous visit to the property.
In testimony before the board, Pond View's owner Ken Foley and his lawyer, William Maaia, acknowledged that there was one day during the last five years when his company took in 170 tons of demolition debris -- 20 tons more than the allowed limit.
Members said that they viewed that and other alleged violations as minor, and certainly not enough to warrant shutting down a firm and putting 60 people out of work. The order to cease and desist had been stayed by the board, allowing the company to operate for the last 2 1/2 years.
The decision on the cease and desist order does not mark the end of the Pond View saga, however. On May 14, the board will hold a hearing on Pond View's petition to accept as much as 500 tons of debris a day, in keeping with a new three-year license issued by the Department of Environmental Management. Providence Journal