Quarry Hearing Continued;

More Info Requested

wBy Sandy Vondrasek

Review of a proposed 17-acre rock quarry off Randolph Center’s Ridge Road will be continued yet another month, the Randolph Development Review Board decided Tuesday night.

More than 40 residents, most of them opposed to the project, turned out for the Tuesday, Feb. 26 hearing at VTC’s Langevin House, despite the evening’s heavy snows.

This week’s quarry hearing was, itself, continued from last month, when the DRB and abuttors listened to two hours of testimony from project engineers, a quarry operator, and a noise expert provided by the applicant, Sprague Farms, LLC.

The project would be sited on a large parcel of land lying between I-89 and Ridge Road, about 3.5 miles north of Randolph Center, in the RU5 district. The quarry needs use review, site plan, and local Act 250 approval from the DRB, as well as state permits.

Plans call for the quarry to be mined in four phases, with ledge extracted and crushed on site, and trucked out along a 1200-foot access road near the Abbot farm.

This week’s continued hearing, also two hours long, included testimony from a second noise expert, this one hired by a group of abuttors, plus time for the DRB and the crowd to question project engineers and the operator of a Roxbury quarry, R.E. Tucker.

Although the application has sparked strong opposition by residents worried about truck traffic, noise, and dust, all parties politely heard out one another, Zoning Administrator Mardee Sanchez said.

The ledge-extraction quarry was one of five applications on the DRB’s agenda Tuesday night. (See below.)

Sanchez said yesterday that the DRB held a deliberative session after the public portion of Tuesday night’s hearing, and decided to request additional information from Sprague Farms.

Spokesman for the abuttors, Ridge Road resident Phil Angell, said he felt testimony presented by the group’s noise expert, Lawrence G. Copley of Massachusetts, "was extremely credible and well received."

The applicant’s noise expert had testified in January that quarry operations would be relatively quiet, and what noise was created would beam out towards I-89, rather than the Ridge Road neighborhood.

Angell said Copley’s testimony included decibel readings of the neighborhood now.

"This is a very quiet neighborhood," he commented.

Copley said that trees "diffuse" noise, but don’t really block it.

Truck traffic, however, "was the big deal that brought out a lot of people," Angell said. Those attending the hearing included residents of the Brookfield part of Ridge Road, since truck traffic from the quarry would travel both north and south on the town road.

Brookfield resident Holly Dustin brought a petition with 84 signatures on it, according to Angell. The petition stated that the quarry operation and its trucks would "change the character of the entire area."

It is not just the higher volume of traffic on the road that worries residents. According to Angell, damage caused by vibration could be significant, because the Ridge Road, and all the houses on it "are built on ledge."

That kind of base conducts vibration readily, he said, and truck vibrations might damage structures, leach fields, and wells.

"It’s not like Route 14 or Route 12, where the road and homes are built on sand," Angell added.

Angell indicated yesterday that opponents of the quarry welcome a continuation of the hearing.

"There is a lot of information (from residents) left remaining to be offered," he said.

Angell said about 15 people, mostly older Ridge Road residents, called him late Tuesday afternoon to say that the weather would keep them home. Also, he noted, representatives from Brookfield Elementary School had their own budget hearing Tuesday night, and could not attend the DRB hearing.

For his part, Angell said he is contacting a state geologist to get more information on the vast ridge of ledge that runs through Central Vermont.

"From Route 107 to the Barre-Montpelier Road is all solid rock, he said.

Blakeman PUD

In another continuation hearing, the DRB reviewed a revised plan from Sharon realtor Kevin Blakeman for a six-unit planned unit development (PUD) on Sunset Hill Road.

Blakeman, who has a permit to build a nine-unit apartment building on the parcel, is now considering developing the lot into a small PUD instead. He is seeking five single-family dwellings and one two-family dwelling. Neighbors opposed the apartment plan, but have said they were supportive of this type of clustered-housing project.

Blakeman was asked by the DRB to return this month with a revised application, since the one he brought last month, with the parcel divvied up by lot lines, was effectively a subdivision, not a PUD, he was told.

According to Sanchez, Blakeman’s new plan kept the same placement of buildings, without the lot lines.

"In essence, all of the land would be common land," Sanchez explained this week. "The owners of the houses would have the responsibility of maintaining and controlling certain parts of the land during certain hours," she said.

The DRB closed the public hearing on Blakeman’s application, and has 45 days to render a decision.

RE Office

The DRB then took up Sherri McPhetres’ request to open a real estate office in a portion of a residence at 6 Central Street. One abuttor stayed through the previous 2.5 hours of hearing for this application, Sanchez noted. The project, in the apartment/residential district, needs conditional use and site plan approval.

The public hearing on the McPhetres application was closed, and the DRB has 45 days to render a decision.

New Store

One applicant did walk away from Tuesday’s long hearing with project approval. Royal Larocque’s plan to open a retail store and bottle redemption center at 544 Beanville Road was approved.

The project, in the rural village district, needed conditional use and site plan approval.

The building was previously used by Rule Signs.

A final applicant, Catherine Bacon, could not make Tuesday’s hearing and has been rescheduled for the March hearing.

Bacon needs a variance and site plan approval to operate a specialty foods company at 17 Weston Street. The building, the historic Brigham Gelatine Company, was recently permitted as a housing condominium.