The multi-national trash hauler that will soon service the majority of St. Paul’s residential routes will have to find a new home for its planned truck maintenance and compressed natural gas refueling center.

The St. Paul City Council voted 5-0 on Wednesday to support a neighborhood-led effort to block the planned trash truck facility planned for 560 Randolph Ave., which had been poised to become a $25 million hub for FCC Environmental’s citywide garbage service.

City zoning staff had previously found that the facility would be comparable to a Public Works maintenance yard, but after being rebuffed by the Planning Commission, members of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation appealed the “determination of similar use” to the city council.

“The question before us is really a simple one. It is not whether or not we agree with this particular use,” said Council President Rebecca Noecker, who represents the area. “The question before us is whether the Planning Commission erred in (blocking) the appeal.”

Impact on pedestrians, traffic

She noted that the Planning Commission failed to review comparisons of how much traffic is generated by a garbage truck facility compared to a Public Works yard, whose trucks are generally lighter than garbage trucks.

“The impact on pedestrians, on traffic … is simply different,” Noecker said.

She also noted that the Randolph-West Seventh Street intersection is a designated “neighborhood node” under the city’s Comprehensive Plan, which highlights certain intersections as priorities for planning, transit and neighborhood amenities.

“The emphasis is clearly on pedestrian safety, walkability and neighborhood-scale facilities,” she said.

Noecker also noted that city staff failed to include 19 of 27 letters to the Planning Commission in commissioner packets before their public hearing, including key documents provided by the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation around site planning.

At Noecker’s urging, the council voted 5-0 to support the appeal. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson was absent.

About two-dozen residents took the microphone before the council on Wednesday, demanding that the city halt plans for the compressed natural gas refueling station, which they said would undermine longstanding efforts to add residential uses to the site. The location sits near the former Schmidt Brewery and about two blocks off West Seventh Street.

“The determination of similar use is totally flawed,” said Dave Thune, a former city council member, noting Public Works trucks and snowplows don’t crisscross the city daily. “This is going to be something that happens every day — (30) to potentially 80 trucks rumbling out of there onto a major neighborhood thoroughfare.”

Temporary site lined up

John Yust, who represented the neighborhood during planning for the Great River Passage Master Plan, said residents had offered to help FCC Environmental and city planning staff find a new location for the project, which he said flies in the face of years of neighborhood planning. Some residents recommended the former Gerdau steel plant on Red Rock Road.

“No city staff leaders came to the table to work on this compromise,” Yust said. “This is a major boondoggle.”

Under FCC Environmental’s seven-year contract with St. Paul, the company will employ about 60 workers and service 90% of the city’s street and alley routes beginning April 1, with St. Paul Public Works crews serving the rest.

Noecker said FCC Environmental has a temporary refueling site lined up, and she did not expect trash collection to be negatively impacted. A phone call and email Wednesday evening to the company’s general manager for St. Paul was not immediately returned.

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