The outcome of a simmering battle between the second largest trash company in the nation and developers of a planned residential community could determine the land-use future of a designated “preferred growth corridor” in Northeast Austin.
The two divergent paths could either lead to a recycling facility, fleet site, and transfer station for waste collection trucks, or a residential and commercial community where residents live, work, and shop. Can the two worlds coexist? City Council will have the final say sometime this year.
Republic Services, the parent company of Allied Waste, is seeking a site plan approval and zoning change to allow the company to consolidate much of its local operations on a recently acquired tract at the southwest intersection of U.S. 290 and SH 130. The company also intends to haul soil from the property to its nearby Sunset Farms Landfill on Giles Lane and use the dirt to cap the landfill when it shutters the dump in November 2015, in compliance with a 2009 settlement agreement with the city.
Republic’s plans don’t jibe with the proposal’s most formidable opponent, Pete Dwyer, a developer of the Wildhorse Ranch project, an immense master-planned community that temporarily derailed in the mid-to-late 2000s due to scam allegations brought against some of the investors. Dwyer, who’s been involved in the project since the beginning, has led the revival of the development. He’s hoping to thwart Republic’s plans for its 161-acre property, which sits adjacent to a portion of his Wildhorse Ranch development.
Dwyer has two things in his favor: The city has already dumped several millions into providing infrastructure for Wildhorse Ranch, and has already suffered one black eye for subsidizing a project that later erupted in scandal. Additionally, the Council-adopted Imagine Austin comprehensive plan has designated the U.S. 290/SH 130 corridor as a future “town center,” defined as an area where people live, work, and shop – similar to the Mueller redevelopment in Central Austin.
The two sides have picked well-schooled Congress Avenue lobbyists to sway city staff and Council one way or another; Republic has retained Steve Drenner to do its bidding, and Dwyer has hired David Armbrust.
As Drenner sees it, the recycling operations shouldn’t pose a quality-of-life threat to the surrounding area because the site will have direct access to U.S. 290 and wide buffer zones lined with new tree plantings. “What we have found is the perfect site with the perfect soil,” Drenner said. Republic is largely honing its message to convince Austin that the new facility will help the city achieve its zero-waste goal of diverting 90% of materials from landfills by 2040. The company said it’s still working on projected diversion figures for its facility, but the materials would come from Austin businesses, since the city’s residential recycling contracts are with Texas Disposal Systems and Balcones Resources.
Opponents of the project question the effectiveness of a “dirty” material recovery facility because the center will also serve to separate out the recyclables from contaminated waste, which would be hauled by truck to Republic’s landfill in San Antonio.
Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, is curious to know how much waste will actually be diverted if the facility is being designed to take in garbage and separate the dirty waste from the recyclables. “Is this going to help or hurt the zero-waste plan that we’ve worked hard to put in place?”
After the city caught wind of Republic’s plans, it moved to annex the site last fall, with the idea that it would have the upper hand on land-use regulations. But by then Republic had already secured a permit from the county, which essentially “grandfathered” the site and ensured Republic’s ability to pursue its plans. But Dwyer, through Armbrust, has submitted a brief to the city challenging Republic’s sequence of permit applications, and suggests the company didn’t fully disclose to the county its plans for the property, other than site grading. “It’s our opinion that they’re not grandfathered,” Dwyer said.
Republic disputes that claim, noting it had reached out to county and city officials as well as Dwyer to explain its goals for the site. Company officials also point out they didn’t contest the city’s annexation, “as we are confident that the City Council will recognize that our proposed uses are appropriate for the site, will not harm any surrounding landowners and will benefit [the city’s zero-waste goals].”
Dwyer’s not buying the company’s selling points. “We call B.S. There’s no way that this thing – if it’s successful – won’t have a negative impact on high-quality growth around it. Whenever I ask, ‘Would you want this facility in your neighborhood?,’ [people] say, ‘Nope, gotta admit it’s nasty; wouldn’t want to live by it.’ So the extrapolation from that is that no one else is going to live by it either, so it’s going to reverberate through what happens to the future of that intersection.”
This article appears in March 22 • 2013.
