Commissioners postpone final decision on Phillippie landfill

Alamance County’s commissioners have decided to give themselves an extra two weeks to mull over a contentious request for a landfill along Clapp Mill Road that would provide a new dumping ground for land clearing and inert debris.

The brainchild of Kenneth Phillippie, this proposed “stump dump” has already received a state permit to operate on a 99-acre lot at 4115 Clapp Mill Road. Under Alamance County’s rules for heavy industrial development, Phillippie must also obtain an “intent-to-construct” permit from the county – which the relevant ordinance requires the county to rubber-stamp provided that the applicant has met all the requirements.

In this case, the county’s planning department has found Phillippie’s permit application to fully comply with the ordinance, while a majority of the county’s planning board came to the same conclusion when its members took up the issue in March.

The commissioners, however, have been reluctant to give their all clear to the permit request due to the vigorous opposition of neighbors who insist they’ve discovered vulnerabilities in Phillippie’s application.

These persistent objections were fresh on the mind of commissioner Ed Priola when he urged the rest of the county’s governing board to postpone the final decision on Phillippie’s proposed facility.

“We need to think about these things in a more deliberative fashion. Whether we ultimately approve the landfill application or not, I want to think about it.”

– County commissioner Ed Priola

“We need to think about these things in a more deliberative fashion,” Priola said before the 5-to-0 decision to put off the matter until April 20. “Whether we ultimately approve the landfill application or not, I want to think about it.”

Checking the boxes

Although Phillippie had originally sent the county his plans for this project last year, it wasn’t until February that the county’s planning department received his current application for the new stump dump. This application has since been endorsed by the county’s planning board, which voted 6-to-1 in March to pass Phillippie’s proposal on to the board of commissioners.

It was this planning board-approved application that Matthew Hoagland brought before the commissioners when they assembled in their usual meeting chambers on Monday.

During his presentation, Hoagland reminded the commissioners that the county’s ordinance for heavy industrial development enjoins them to sign off on a permit as long as the applicant has met all the stipulated requirements. He added that, in this case, Phillippie has complied with the ordinance’s demand for a minimum lot size of 10 acres and a 150-foot setback for the landfill’s proposed operations. He also presented the applicant’s obligatory plans for lighting and flooding mitigation, an overview of the project’s potential effects on groundwater and wells, and a traffic impact analysis that’s, likewise, mandated under the ordinance.

Hoagland went on to inform the commissioners that the applicant’s traffic analysis predicts that the proposed stump dump would add 77 trips to the roughly 600 vehicles a day that the state’s transportation department currently estimates for Clapp Mill Road. The county’s planning director added that this figure is far short of the road’s carrying capacity of 12,100. He conceded, however, that neighboring residents have made some headway in their claims that the road is ill-suited to handle the truck traffic that Phillippie’s project would generate.

Hoagland went on to add that these complaints have already spurred a response from Chuck Edwards, a district engineer with the state’s transportation department who oversees the state-maintained roads in Alamance County. The county’s planning director said that Edwards has notified him that state plans to knock 10 miles an hour off of Clapp Mill Road’s 55 mile an hour speed limit in the event that the commissioners approve Phillippie’s plans for the landfill. He also alluded to the proposed installation of signs to warn drivers of trucks entering the highway as well as a proposal to resurface the road by the year’s end and widen the inside travel lanes along curves.

“I think that this was partly in response to a lot of citizen concerns about the road,” Hoagland went on to inform the commissioners, “and I know we can’t compel the DOT to do anything different with the road.”

Neighborhood opposition

The adequacy of Clapp Mill Road is just one of several issues that opponents of this project had brought before the commissioners while Phillippie’s application was still making its way through planning review process.

On Monday, however, the state of the road seemed to have been pushed to the shoulders for the five residents who spoke out against the permit during a generalized public comment period that preceded Hoagland’s presentation.

Of more immediate concern to detractors like Carol Davis were the apparent contradictions that exist between Phillippie’s current permit application and the earlier proposal which the county’s planning board had picked apart in December. Davis also raised the alarm over some potential conflicts between Phillippie’s county-level submissions and the plans he has previously filed with state regulators.

“The community has a right to understand the full scope of what’s going on in their back yards.”

– Carol Davis

“The community,” Davis went on to declare, “has a right to understand the full scope of what’s going on in their back yards.”

Davis’ remarks paved the way for a legalistic argument from fellow resident Matt Kirkpatrick, who told the commissioners that he and his neighbors have submitted a veritable “dissertation” on the shortcomings of Phillippie’s application.

“We need time to deliberate the application of your UDO to this landfill. We need to hit pause. . . This is the future of the county that we’re talking about.”

– Matt Kirkpatrick

“We need time to deliberate the application of your UDO to this landfill,” Kirkpatrick proceeded to say. “We need to hit pause…This is the future of the county that we’re talking about.”

Kirkpatrick also took the county’s planning department to task over allegations that Phillippie has been operating the new stump dump in the absence of the local permit’s approval. These claims were echoed by other landfill opponents, including Kirkpatrick’s mother, Linda Kirkpatrick.

Hoagland, for this part, insisted that county staff members had actually visited the site in December, February, and March and confirmed that the landfill hadn’t prematurely opened for business. Some residents nevertheless objected to the alleged fallout from Phillippie’s site preparations, regardless of the legal status of these activities.

During Monday’s meeting, Clapp Mill resident Ron Gaude took particular note of ash dispersal and smoke that he attributed to Phillippie’s use of “air curtain” fires to clear trees from the landfill’s proposed site.

Meanwhile, Gaude’s wife Pam took issue with the high concentration of existing landfills near Clapp Mill Road – including a much smaller stump dump that Phillippie already runs along nearby Kimesville Road.

“We all deserve better – not a community of landfills, and I ask that you listen to the neighbors who will be directly impacted and vote no on the permit to construct.”

– Pam Gaude

“We all deserve better – not a community of landfills,” she said, “and I ask that you listen to the neighbors who will be directly impacted and vote no on the permit to construct.”

Throwing in with the landfill

Prior to Monday’s proceedings, Phillippie’s critics more or less had the floor to themselves as they’ve taken advantage of public comment periods to harangue the commissioners about the proposed landfill.

On Monday, however, the project’s opponents were largely relegated to an overflow room on the ground floor of the county’s headquarters, while the second-floor meeting chambers teemed with residents who counted themselves fans of the landfill.

In the end, the commissioners heard from five of the project’s supporters, who effectively balanced out the five individuals who spoke out against the request.

“About 98 percent of this room are Phillippie supporters, and this is a good thing with the growth of Alamance County.”

– David Wrenn

David Wrenn, a self-described childhood friend of the applicant, pointed to this strong show of support from the applicant’s backers when he addressed the commissioners on Monday.

“About 98 percent of this room are Phillippie supporters,” he declared, “and this is a good thing with the growth of Alamance County.”

Jay O’Dell, the pastor of nearby Kimesville Road Baptist Church, spoke highly of the applicant’s character to explain his own easy attitude about the proposed landfill.

“Mr. Phillippie is not a member of our church. I am not on his payroll. He’s not giving me any compensation for being here today. However, he has assisted us and our ministry in many different ways. . . He’s not a man that’s greedy. He’s not a self-centered individual. He is a caring man who deserves nothing more than to provide for his family.”

– Rev. Jay O’Dell, Kimesville Road Baptist Church

“Mr. Phillippie is not a member of our church. I am not on his payroll. He’s not giving me any compensation for being here today,” O’Dell pronounced. “However, he has assisted us and our ministry in many different ways…He’s not a man that’s greedy. He’s not a self-centered individual. He is a caring man who deserves nothing more than to provide for his family.”

O’Dell’s take on Phillippie’s character drew an “amen” from longtime resident Dean Coble.

Meanwhile, Clapp Mill Road resident Bobby Steele took umbrage with the opposition’s claims that Phillippie is already creating problems for the landfill’s reluctant neighbors.

“All these trucks that they’re talking about – I’ve sat there for three days, an average of 10 to 12 hours a day, and do you know how many trucks I’ve seen drive by? Two. All these ashes that they’re talking about, I’ve not seen one, and I live a quarter of a mile from the landfill.”

– Bobby Steele

“All these trucks that they’re talking about – I’ve sat there for three days, an average of 10 to 12 hours a day, and do you know how many trucks I’ve seen drive by? Two,” he said. “All these ashes that they’re talking about, I’ve not seen one, and I live a quarter of a mile from the landfill.”

Finally, Paul Koonts, an attorney in Phillippie’s employ, encouraged the commissioners to sign off on his client’s request based on overwhelming opinion of county staff as well as the planning board’s members.

“There is no doubt we have checked every box on that permit application. The planning board, after multiple hearings and multiple rounds of comments, have voted 6-to-1 in favor [of the request]. . . We ask you to approve the permit, and I really don’t believe there’s any other choice if you follow the law.”

– Phillippie’s attorney Paul Koonts

“There is no doubt we have checked every box on that permit application,” he said. “The planning board, after multiple hearings and multiple rounds of comments, have voted 6-to-1 in favor [of the request]…We ask you to approve the permit, and I really don’t believe there’s any other choice if you follow the law.”

Delay of the land

The commissioners concurred with the applicant’s attorney that they have little discretion in their decision, assuming that Phillippie has, indeed, met all the county’s permit requirements. They were nevertheless determined not to bring things to a vote without having, first, satisfied themselves that the applicant’s request is in order.

Priola, for one, argued that he and his colleagues should give the project’s opponents the same chance to eviscerate Phillippie’s application that Hoagland had to present it to the commissioners.

“Maybe the plan you’ve presented is flawed,” he added as he addressed the county’s planning director, “and I think it would be fair for us to hear the objections specifically to the plans that you’ve presented.”

Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, added his voice to Priola’s call for more information about the permit application.

“We need the time to digest it. . . to see if we agree. But quite frankly, we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, if you pardon my French.”

– County commissioner Steve Carter

“We need the time to digest it…to see if we agree,” he added. “But quite frankly, we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, if you pardon my French.”

Carter went on to recall that the county’s governing board had found itself in a very similar predicament in the fall of 2020 when a mining concern dubbed Alamance Aggregates proposed to set up shop in the unincorporated community of Snow Camp.  The rules that were on the books at the time enabled this out-of-state concern to obtain a permit directly from the county’s planning director once it had met all of the stated criteria.  As a result, the permit was issued with neither the consent, nor even the knowledge, of the county’s top brass and most of the community’s residents.

An after-the-fact outcry from neighbors prompted the commissioners to revise the permit approval process to include public hearings and votes of approval from both the county’s planning board and the board commissioners. Yet, these moves toward greater transparency didn’t alter the fact that, even under the county’s amended rules, a permit for heavy industrial remains preordained as long as the applicant happens to “check all the boxes.”

During Monday’s discussion, commissioner Pam Thompson opined that this lack of discretion stems from a fundamental weakness in the county’s current approach to land use regulation.

“This is one of those situations when, if you don’t have zoning, this is what you get.”

– County commissioner Pam Thompson

“This is one of those situations when, if you don’t have zoning, this is what you get,” she said as she alluded to the absence of any formal zoning scheme in areas that are under the county’s direct planning authority.

Thompson went on to note that the strong feelings swirling around Phillippie’s plans have made it a “very tough issue” for the commissioners.

Kelly Allen, the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, agreed she and her colleagues should pay heed to these competing arguments as they make a decision about Phillippie’s request.

“Because we don’t have zoning, we’re pretty much told there’s no way to stop this. But I have a lot of questions left, and I don’t want this to go back to planning and zoning.”

– Alamance County commissioner chairman Kelly Allen

“Because we don’t have zoning, we’re pretty much told there’s no way to stop this,” she added. “But I have a lot of questions left, and I don’t want this to go back to planning and zoning.”

Sam Powell, the newest member of the county’s governing board, objected to the absence of any geographic limits on the waste that Phillippie’s proposed facility accepts. He went on to urge his colleagues to amend the relevant ordinance so that any landfills approved in the future would be constrained in their service areas.

When all was said and done, the commissioners agreed to revisit Phillippie’s request at their next regularly-scheduled meeting on April 20. As a concession to Priola, the commissioners also agreed to give the project’s opponents 15 minutes to lay out their case, followed by 15 minutes for a rebuttal from Koonts.

Meanwhile, Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens urged the commissioners to wrap up their deliberations at their forthcoming meeting.

“[Whether it’s] for or against, we need to take action at some point,” he argued. “I don’t think two weeks is a problem. But delaying it perpetually is an issue.”

The commissioners voted 5-to-0 to bring the application back up on April 20.

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