Company files suit over revocation of permit to operate Weathersfield recycling center

Staff report

WARREN

A Niles company that received a permit from Weathersfield Township to operate a demolition debris recycling center and landfill on Warren Avenue in Weathersfield Township has filed a lawsuit in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court seeking an order to stop the township zoning board of appeals from revoking its permit to operate.

Southside Environmental Group LLC of Niles is appealing a Dec. 11 decision by the Weathersfield Township Zoning Board of Appeals that affirmed a decision by the township zoning inspector to revoke Southside’s permit.

Southside’s lawsuit says it has been operating the facility since June 12, 2012, near the Deforest Road intersection north of Waddell Park in Niles.

But Gil Blair, Weathersfield Township trustee, said there is very little activity at the site other than building materials being trucked in “but never seem to leave.”

Blair said township trustees pulled their support for a $250,000 Ohio Environmental Protection Agency grant that would have been used to start up the recycling center after the Kurtz Brothers Inc. of Cleveland pulled out of the project.

Southside Environmental Group formerly used an address on Robbins Avenue in Niles, but in its lawsuit, it uses the address 1806 Warren Avenue, the location of the recycling center.

The loss of the Kurtz Brothers and the trustees’ support stopped Southside from receiving the grant, Blair said.

Southside’s lawsuit said the township zoning inspector’s July 14, 2014, letter said the company’s June 12, 2002, permit to operate expired because the company had not implemented the permit’s uses within a two-year time limit. Blair said he agrees that the company did not meet the requirements of the permit.

“Southside denies that it has not implemented the uses,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also alleges that the township zoning inspector never issued a written permit, so the two-year time period has not yet begun. The suit was filed by Atty. Thomas C. Nader of Warren.