A group of residents who live near the site of a proposed “stump dump” have taken legal action to forestall the development of this facility despite its approval by Alamance Coun-ty’s governing board.
Linda Kirpatrick and six other plaintiffs have filed this suit against both Alamance County and Kenneth D. Phillippie to prevent the latter from using his county-authorized permit to establish this land clearing and inert debris landfill on property he owns at 4115 Clapp Mill Road.
Kirpatrick and her co-plaintiffs formally lodged their legal complaint in superior court on May 20 – precisely one month to the day after a proposed permit for Phillippie’s landfill received the blessing of the county’s board of commissioners.
A majority of the commissioners had signed off on this permit once they concluded that the applicant had met all the requirements of Alamance County’s ordinance for heavy industrial development. Under this ordinance, a permit is effectively guaranteed the county’s approval as long as the applicant meets the criteria for the proposed facility. In the case of Phillippie’s landfill, both the county’s planning staff and the members of its planning board found the application to be in order before it went before the commissioners. The permit received the imprimatur of the county’s governing board in a 4-to-1 vote on April 20 – with the lone vote of dissent cast by vice chairman Steve Carter.
In their 12-page complaint, the plaintiffs contend that the permit’s approval was “arbitrary and capricious,” unsupported by “substantial, competent evidence,” and “affected by errors of law.”
Among their objections, the plaintiffs assert that county officials had misclassified Phillippie’s facility and subjected it to a less onerous set of standards than the county’s ordinance demanded. They argue that the correct set of standards would require more ample setbacks and a greater amount of separation between the landfill’s approved operations and several neighboring homes.
The plaintiffs also assert that an access road which Phillippie has laid out on the facility’s site plan should have been included in its “area of operations.” By this logic, the road should adhere to the same setbacks as the rest of the landfill’s operations, preventing it from feeding into Clapp Mill Road.
In addition to Linda Kirpatrick, the plaintiffs who’ve signed on to the lawsuit include Carol Davis, Larry and Calandra Salo, Frederick D. and Betty P. Slade, and Seatic, LLC, which also owns property that abuts the landfill’s proposed site.
Robert E. Hornik, Jr., the attorney who filed the complaint for the plaintiffs, had also appeared before the commissioners before the permit’s approval.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs have asked the court to confirm their claims about the dubious nature of the permit’s approval. They also seek a formal declaration that the permit “is null, void, and of no effect” and that Phillippie is “restrained” and “enjoined” from operating the landfill. In addition, the plaintiffs are asking that their legal expenses be billed to the defendants and that the court grant them “such other and further relief as…seems just and proper.”
