Scrap Processor Wins Battle with City

Lloyd Terminals Inc. won a tentative victory as it seeks a special exception to permit a renewal of a scrap yard with limited processing, in an IH zone.

The request was postponed from a public hearing the previous week.

A proposal to renew the company's five-year permit was heard July 10th

Lloyd Terminals Inc. wants to keep its scrap yard and scrap metal transfer station on a 5.5-acre lot off the Quinnipiac River, but the parcel stands in the middle of a $14 million city plan to redevelop River Street and its industrial waterfront.

The city may have an ace up its sleeve, and a City Plan Advisory Report issued gave the public a peek at its hand. Though the report did not recommend a denial of the permit, it called for further investigation of alleged zoning and Department of Environmental Protection violations on the property.

The city issued a cease-and-desist order against president Greg Bodytko in April after a Zoning Enforcement Officer Raphael Ramos found evidence the junkyard had expanded into 142 River St., a lot across the street. Ramos also found dumpsters on the street, many of them full of scrap metal, according to the report.

But Bodytko's attorney, Marjorie Shansky, appealed the order on the grounds that 142 River St. is not affiliated with Lloyd Terminal and that the junk bins had been moved into the street to clear the way for a city inspection of the property. The city report appears to concede defeat on this argument and asks the zoning board to reexamine the cease-and-desist order "in the context of the renewal of the junkyard permit."

Shansky said Monday she plans to argue both to renew the permit and to appeal the city order at the hearing, but she declined further comment, according to an article by The New Haven Register.

The city is not expected to back down on other grounds, however, and its Monday report listed 10 questions for the Board of Zoning Appeals to address. The City Plan Department will come out with a final recommendation for approval or denial pending a Coastal Site Plan review expected later this month.

Among its "questions," the report mentions Ramos' cease-and-desist order, as well as an April 4 order from the DEP for illegally removing scrap metal from the Quinnipiac River. Neighbors and environmental activists have repeatedly accused the junkyard of allowing tons of raw metal to slip off barges and into the river.

The report also says the "footprint and height of the junkyard piles" exceed their 20-foot limit, that the owners failed to install tracking pads near the entrances, and that they refused to repair its "deteriorated" bulkhead in violation of a DEP order.

Other issues that have generated concern for the city has been the significant amount of traffic, noise, dust and other problems created by the scrap facility’s operations.

The scrap facility, which is located in a heavy industrial zone, performs some scrap processing, although, according to one source, most of the material shipped to the scrap yard is barged and shipped to other locations for processing.