Site-Ready To Address Environmental Concerns Tonight At Planning Board Meeting

Representatives from Site-Ready Materials, a waste management facility on Eagleville Road in Tiverton, will appear before the Tiverton Planning Board tonight at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall.

Tiverton residents oppose the large-scale expansion that will transform Site-Ready from a construction materials provider and composting facility into a solid waste processing facility. 

According to former Town Council member David Nelson, the proposed development of the property is expected to bring an additional $15,000 to the property tax rolls.

Residents argued at two recent Town Council meetings that this increase to the tax rolls was insufficient for the environmental concerns and disruption to their nighborhood that the expansion would generate.

"Take into consideration our property value losses," said Patricia Pelletier, an Eagleville Road resident. "You estimate an additional $15,000 in tax revenue, but my property taxes will be cut in half."

The site exists within the Stafford Pond watershed overlay district. Earlier in the meeting the council voted unanimously to amend the density calculations for subdivisions within the watershed overlay district. The regulation called for no more than one unit per three acres of land. In the old ordinance developers could count wetlands and unbuildable steep slopes into the equation. The amended ordinance disallows adding this type of unbuildable land into the equation.

The proposed project calls for a two-phased expansion of the waste management facility. Phase 1 would be the construction of a 25,000-square-foot, 40-foot-tall prefabricated building. Phase 2 would call for an additional building of identical propportions adjacent to the Phase 1 building. 

The new buildings would allow for expanded recycling capabilities, the operation of a transfer station and a single-stream materials recovery facility, according to the project summary. All materials would reportedly be processed indoors.

The expanded operation would allow for the processing of up to 1,500 tons of recyclable materials, construction and demolition debris and municipal solid waste daily. The company estimated an additional 740 trucks would travel to the Eagleville Road site via Fish and Stafford roads daily - 60 to 100 of those between 7 and 8 a.m.

Currently Site-Ready is a facility that serves the general public and wholesalers and provides not only gravel, stone, coarse and fine sand, but wall stone, rip rap, fill, loam, compost, granite curbing, and cobble stones. They are also a DEM compost facility and recycle any organic material such as stumps, brush, and grass clippings. In addition, they also accept concrete, brick, and asphalt and turn those into gravel, according to Tiverton-Little Compton Patch's directory listing.

The Planning Board will meet tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall. For the complete agenda, click here.