PLAINFIELD — The owner of a Route 12A warehouse that has been embroiled in controversy over a trucking operation has been granted approval for extending its operating hours, according to Town Administrator Steve Halleran.
Halleran said the Zoning Board of Adjustment at its meeting on Monday discussed Bart Industries’ request to extend the originally approved operating hours of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. The board eventually agreed to 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., Halleran said Tuesday.
“They thought, ‘Ten p.m. in a residential area is a bit late, so we’ll give you 8 p.m.,’ ” Halleran said.
According to draft minutes of the meeting, Bart can have no more than two tractor trailer deliveries in one 24-hour period and no more than one truck delivery after 6 p.m. The facility can operate seven days a week as opposed to six days under the original approval in 2017. The smaller trucks that deliver the products of Frito-Lay, the warehouse tenant, have to operate between the hours of 5 a.m. and 6 p.m., the minutes state.
“They may decide they can live with it or they may appeal,” Halleran said of the new hours of operation. “In the end they got less than what they asked for.”
Paul Franklin; his wife, Nancy; and his daughter, Amy, abutters to the warehouse, opposed the extended hours for a number of reasons.
Franklin, the town moderator, said the new application did not adhere to a Supreme Court ruling decades ago requiring applications seeking an amendment to have a significant change to previous requests, according to the minutes. Halleran said the board addressed that issue and decided there was “enough different (in this application) to hear it.”
The Franklins also argued that based on the company’s track record of documented violations of the approved operating hours, it was unlikely it would abide by any extended hours, and Nancy Franklin said the warehouse is not aligned with the town’s master plan or the Connecticut River corridor management plan.
The Zoning Board approved the application from Bart in 2017 with the condition that hours of operation would be limited to 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, Frito-Lay has consistently violated that condition with tractor trailers arriving all hours of the night, which Bart told the board it cannot control. In March, the board denied a request for extended hours because Bart was essentially seeking a 24-hour operation.
Kim McGrath, part of the Bart ownership, told the Zoning Board on Monday that the needs of the warehouse were not “properly represented” to the board in the original application and not shared with Frito-Lay, according to the meeting minutes. She said the company is committed to bringing the facility into full compliance with the town.
Nancy Franklin said Tuesday afternoon that she and her family think the board failed to properly apply a 1980 Supreme Court ruling in Fisher v. Dover, N.H.
“I think they got it wrong,” she said. “When the decision comes out, we plan to appeal and will go from there.”
Halleran also said Tuesday that the recent court action filed by the town seeking enforcement of a “cease and desist” order issued in July because of repeated violations of approved operating hours will not be pursued by the town at this time with the new hours of operation.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
