New Haven Independent

The scrap yard has been in New Haven since 1887 and on River Street since 1920. Just how do you balance the competing rights and claims that appear to be loggerheads?

That question was offered up for decision-making to Patricia King, Elijah Huge (pictured) and the other commissioners of the City Plan Department at a recent public hearing.

The scrap metal recycling yard, New Haven Brass Rod, Inc., has been in the family of this man, Joseph Regan, Jr. for four generations, having begun on East Street and moved to James, and finally to River Street early in the century. At issue was the yard’s application for a special permit for continued use because the yard is in the River Street Municipal Development District. While the city hopes, eventually, to acquire the land and develop it for other uses more fitting for this evolving district, funds for that purchase are nowhere in sight. In the meantime?

The Regans’ attorney, Marjorie Shansky, pictured here with engineer and surveyor Robert Criscuolo, was at pains to point out to the commissioners that under applicable New Haven zoning statues, the business is a “pre-existing non-conforming use,” and has every right to continued use on River Street. “That,” said Shansky, “is not the issue here. The issue is reconciling that right with the city’s right to monitor the scrap yard.”

Demonstrating the good citizenship of the Regans in trying to fit in to what Shansky called “the beautiful Quinnipiac River District,” Criscuolo and the company’s current president Brendan Regan explained the improvements they were engaged in. “We’re developing a new driveway system,” said Regan, “to reduce and then eliminate dust. We’re putting up new signage, internally, so that both our employees and trucks delivering scrap to us will not idle their engines. Our fencing is all either new or newly repaired and is ten feet high. And our equipment, to be environmentally responsible, is now all running on biodiesel fuels. And we are working hard to keep the heights of our scrap piles under control.”

It was precisely that point — and then many others aspects of the scrap business - that have the Regans’ neighbors, Pete and Robin Klein (pictured) upset. They own the New Haven Storage Company, which is adjacent to the yard. In testimony with the visual aid of photographs taken the same day, they showed the commissioners piles of scrap considerably higher than the 15 feet City Plan seems to have called for, as well parts of the yard’s fence that appeared to be not in as good shape as represented.

“The bottom line,” said Pete Klein, “is that we have sunk millions of dollars into our business and, what with the bridge closings and all, we are barely hanging on. It was our understanding that we were moving into a zone where a business like a scrap yard would be removed. This is not fair. Let’s face it. A junk yard is a junk yard. There is no way to beautify it. You yourselves in your reporting on it have called it an eye sore. You should move it.”

Then he went on to point out environmental hazards that they perceived, including oil that would seep into the ground from the recycling process, as well as other contaminants arising from the crushing and recycling of car parts.

Attorney Shansky countered by saying there were no cars recycled in the yard and the process was a dry one in which no oil residue is left.

City Engineer Richard Miller, who is a member of the commission, questioned Shansky, Criscuolo, and Brendan Regan. Here’s an excerpt of their exchange:

Miller: What’s the status of drainage from the site?

Criscuolo: The land, which runs from Chapel to River Street is flat. There’s minimal run-off and no need for curb cuts.

Miller: Tell me again about the fence condition.

Shansky:The fences are nearly brand new.

Miller: Well, how do you keep metal, in the processing, from kicking into the fence? That could be unsightly, not to say dangerous.

Regan: We’ve had only one instance of that that I can remember. The crane works in such a way that the piles don’t encroach on the area of the fence.

Miller: I would still recommend some kind of buffer, a jersey barrier along the fence so that absolutely nothing hits. You know the point is to have a fence that makes it appear that there’s not really a scrap yard behind it.

King, chairperson of the committee, returned to the height of the piles, which seemed to be one of the major issues both for the commissioners and the Kleins. In the preliminary report, City Plan recommended the height of the scrap piles in process be kept to 15 feet.

Regan: Our goal is to treat the yard like a manufacturing business. Material comes in and it goes out, without accumulation. But accumulation does happen.

King: How many days will the pile be above 15 feet?

Regan: It’s hard to know. It depends on the ships, the trucks, the deliveries. The maximum would be that a pile would remain at fifteen feet or a little more maybe for 15 days a month.

Shansky: I know that the report back from the city suggested a 15-foot limit, but as a non-conforming use I would hope you’d allow latitude because as he says sometimes the volume of work is such that the pile can be 20 feet.

Shansky concluded by saying she would hope the commissioners might recognize the longstanding contribution of this New Haven family to the city and recognize the permit request.

City Plan Executive Director Karyn Gilvarg told the commissioners that the site is indeed slated to be purchased by the city eventually, but only in the long term. In the short term, there is no funding available for that purpose, and in the interim, the applicant is endeavoring to clean up the site. Eventually it will but not now.

Shansky reiterated: It is entitled to stay, by law. That is not under dispute. She called the Kleins’ charges that cars were being reprocessed there and that oil and other contaminants were polluting “scurrilous,” because the processes were all clean.

“Moreover,” she concluded, (and here comes the second answer to the question posed at the top of the article), the Kleins’ notion that customers are being turned away or business is somehow adversely affected is not so. “In both cases customers just drop off stuff. Neither business has occupants. So these are truly compatible uses. How nice.”

The Kleins appeared not to be mollified.

“We’ll deliberate further,” said Commissioner King.