A Hamilton County planning panel on Monday gave the OK for a proposed 55-acre expansion to a construction and debris landfill in Birchwood despite opposition from some neighbors.
Bill Lind, owner of Birchwood III LLC, said the proposed site on the 8900 block of Harrison Bay Road and the 9000 block of Bryan Road is next to an existing 25-acre landfill that has had heavy use.
“What we have now has been a tremendous thing,” he said at a meeting of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission. “We’re trying to get the expansion.”
He said the new site also would hold no household items, paint, batteries or mattresses, but rather construction materials and similar debris.
But some nearby neighbors were critical of the proposed expansion, saying Lind’s company will continue to push for more land in the area to become landfill.
Tonia Martin told the panel that the owner of the existing site “hasn’t been a good neighbor.”
“They’re trying to continue to expand in the future,” she added, also complaining about noise from the landfill during the winter months when trees are bare.
Another neighbor said he didn’t want his backyard to look “at a dump.”
“We ought to give consideration to people who’ve lived there a long time,” he said.
Planning commission staff proposed conditions for approving a zoning change for the landfill, including a minimum 100-foot buffer.
Hamilton County Commissioner Steve Highlander asked if the landfill expansion would use the same entrance as the existing site, which Lind said would be the case.
Highlander also asked if there could be a condition that conifer trees, which keep their leaves, could be planted as part of the buffer. Lind said his company could plant those trees.
“This will give a visual and other barrier,” Highlander said.
Still, the Hamilton County Commission needs to give the rezoning final approval.
In 2017, about two dozen people turned out at a planning commission meeting to oppose the initial 25-acre landfill, but the project won approval from the panel then as well.
At the time, an opponent said there are 1,500 signatures on petitions against the proposed landfill.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318. Follow him on Twitter @MikePareTFP.