nothin Barbs Traded Over Barbed Wire | New Haven Independent

Barbs Traded Over Barbed Wire

Markeshia Ricks Photos

Chlor-Alkali attorneys Shansky and Mendel: 70 jobs on the line.

Drone Photo

The factory, after the Dec. 22 explosion.

Homeland Security told us to put barbed wire around our plant, insisted attorneys for a Cedar Hill bleach manufacturer.

Prove it, said city planners.

Owners of the plant, New Haven Chlor-Alkali (formerly H. Krevit & Co.), received approval with conditions from the City Plan Commission Thursday for a site plan that converts an existing building zoned as a warehouse to a manufacturing use in an IH, or heavy industrial zone, and allows it to repair a part of the plant that exploded on Dec. 22.

But that approval came after more than 40 minutes of occasionally sharp back and forth among Chlor-Alkali’s attorneys, commissioners and City Plan staff over the use of barbed wire on the property — and, more broadly, the lack of trust that has developed between the company and the community since that explosion.

City Plan staff recommended that one of the conditions of site plan approval be that before the city approve building permits, the company remove barbed wire from fencing around its company complex’s Welton Street site in the Cedar Hill neighborhood. Or that it obtain written permission from all the property owners within 412.5 feet of the property to keep it up. The company claimed that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requires the placement of the barbed wire.

Gilvarg: There are trust issues.

I’m a little concerned about the barbed wire issue only because — and I don’t know how to say this nicely, and it’s certainly no reflection on the people that are here tonight — but I feel like we need to verify that Homeland Security in fact wants barbed wire around this site,” City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said during the commission’s monthly meeting at City Hall. And so I would suggest that we make that a condition that that would only be removed when and if we get that information from Homeland Security. And it can be done in a confidential way, through attorneys. But I’d like to verify that.”

Gilvarg said given recent discoveries — namely that the company was illegally manufacturing bleach in a building that had been zoned and approved as a warehouse, which became known only after the Dec. 22 explosion— made city departments including hers wary of taking the company and its representatives at their word.

Again, it’s no reflection on the people that are currently before us, but there is a bit of a trust issue here with some of the city departments, and it just occurred to me looking at this, Well, they say this, but how do we know this?”“

Attorney Marjorie Shansky said she and her client learned only hours before Thursday night’s meeting of the City Plan staff’s concern regarding the barbed wire.

To the extent that we want to have a continuing dialogue about that, we’re happy to do so, but it’s very important that it not be held against the issue of the building permit and the repair of the building proceeding,” she said. I represent to you that I will continue that dialogue to your satisfaction, but it shouldn’t be used as a means of impeding their ability to go forward, because that’s very important.”

Shansky and fellow Chlor-Alkali attorney Nancy Mendel both argued that in similar matters before the commission the company was allowed to share details like the barbed-wire requirement without going into extensive detail. Mendel said the information regarding such a regulation is usually confidential. And given the understaffing in various Trump Administration departments including Homeland Security, it is unknowable how long it might take to receive a response regarding the requirement for barbed wire around the facility, Shansky added.

Chlor-Alkali Vice-President Tom Ross told commissioners that Homeland Security officials provided specifications for the barbed wire fence, including where it should be installed, the height of the fence and the wire, and the direction the wire should face. He said that department also conducts annual inspections.

Mattison: Mistrust warranted.

And none of that is in writing,” Commission Chair Ed Mattison quizzed.

No, those were in-person meetings,” Ross said.

Is there no documentation of the original ask to put up the barbed wire? Can’t we just pull that document out?” pressed City Plan staffer Anne Hartjen.

Those are not documents that can just be shared because they’re subject to confidentiality,” Mendel said. But she and Shansky promised to get the commission an answer.

Shanksy told the commission that she understands their concern, but her client has a bigger concern — the 70 employees who are waiting to get back to work using a cleaner, greener system to manufacture bleach. Ross said some of them had to be laid off, but he declined to say how many after the meeting.

Though the cleaner process played a role in the explosion at the improperly operating plant back in December, it is the older less-green Powell” process that has caused Cedar Hill neighbors the most concern in the past. And until the new plant is repaired and running again, the company has had to rely solely on training in liquid chlorine, increasing the risk of a dangerous leak.

Ramos-Valcarcel: Do you want anyone to just walk on that site?

Commissioner Maricel Ramos-Valcarcel said that fencing has existed since the building was built in 2010 — so why question it now? Hartjen suggested the question should have been raised in the original approval process.

There is an issue here that the company went ahead without proper permitting and started doing all kinds of stuff,” Mattison added.

Shanksky conceded that the owner did not previously have the correct zoning approval to manufacture bleach in its new plant, but she also questioned why the New Haven Building Department didn’t flag a nearly $2.3 million electrical permit for manufacturing equipment back in 2014.

It is not quite as under the cover of darkness,” she said. They got the appropriate permit and the appropriate inspections. Did it have the appropriate zoning? No. Now it does.”

As of Tuesday night it does. The Board of Zoning Appeals approved that change of the use of the warehouse to permit manufacturing during its meeting that night, granting a special exception for a manufacturing facility in the IH (heavy industrial) zone where its factory is located. The new facility will be used exclusively for the GreenChlor method of bleach production, in which purified water is blended with salt molecules and then electrolyzed, creating sodium hypochlorite or bleach. Currently, Chlor-Alkali relies on the older Powell Process of bleach production, which uses liquid chlorine shipped to New Haven by rail car.

Shansky called it unfair” for the commissioners to use its concerns about the barbed wire as a weapon” against her client.

Ultimately, the City Plan Commission Wednesday night unanimously approved the site plan, amending the condition regarding proof of the Homeland Security regulation to say that the applicant would provide documentation of the fencing requirement.

Commissioner Adam Marchand, who helped craft the amendment, told the attorneys that he appreciated their urgency but he cautioned them that the conditions are not weapons,” as Shansky had characterized them.

Our conditions are things put in place to protect the interest of our residents, to protect the goals and values of our comprehensive plan and I think that particular word, and that particular language is unnecessary and inappropriate,” he said. The word weapon’ — we don’t need that kind of language in these kinds of proceedings.”

It was not the condition that was objectionable. It was the tie-in to the permitting that gave it an artificial veneer of competing with the developer going forward,” Shansky said. I don’t think that there was any thing uncivil about the use of it, but I appreciate your comments.”

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