By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — In what has been a long and contentious battle, the city recently won a favorable ruling from a federal court judge in a lawsuit that was brought by the owners of company who want to create a trash transfer station on railroad property located off Pine Street near downtown.

However, a more important legal ruling that pertains to whether or not the transfer station moves forward has yet to be decided by the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC, had filed a seven-count complaint in U.S. District Court against the City of Pawtucket, the city’s Zoning Board of Review, and Michael Cassidy as director of the Pawtucket Planning and Redevelopment Commission.
It was the opinion of U.S. District Judge William E. Smith that the court action was styled after a civil rights action for an “alleged deprivation of rights under the U.S. Constitution.” Smith wrote that while the plaintiff, Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC (PTO) had sought to “fashion a federal case out of what amounts to a local planning dispute over the permitting of a transfer station.”
He added that “the effort ultimately fails, in spirt of the apparently less than model behavior by the local zoning officials.”
Procedurally, Smith said that the Court had to decide cross-motions for summary judgement. Based on reasons listed in his opinion, Smith granted in part the defendants’ (city’s) motion for summary judgement as to counts I,II, and II of the complaint, and denied as moot counts IV, V, VI, and VII.
Smith further ordered that counts IV, V, VI, and VII of PTO’s complaint are dismissed without prejudice; and PTO’s  motion for summary judgment is denied as moot.
In count I, a “procedural due process” claim,  PTO alleges that the city unlawfully revoked PTO’s zoning certificates without authority and in vioation of the procedural requirements set forth in the zoning ordinance. PTO alleged that it was thus denied its “procedural due process rights” under the U.S. and state Constitution.
However, Smith ruled that PTO had not established that it had been deprived of a property interest without due process of law.
In count II, PTO made a “substantive due process claim” that alleged that the city engaged in “arbitrary, egregious and irrational abuses of their governmental powers” which amounted to “spot zoning” and preventing the company from making use of the property as permitted by state and local law and in violation of the U.S. and state Constitution.
However, Smith wrote that, even if PTO’s allegations of the Planning Director usurping his legal authority in regard to the Division of Zoning and Code Enforcement could be proven, the charges “do not come near the threshhold for a denial of substantive due process.”
In count III, PTO’s “equal protection claim” alleged that the the city “discriminated against Plaintiff in a manner that bears no reasonable relationship to any legitimate governmental or public interest, and arbitraily imposed restrictions on a discriminatory basis” specific to the property. Again, PTO argued that it was denied its equal protection rights under the U.S. and state Constitution.
Smith opined that PTO had not satisfied the elements of an equal protection claim, and, further, “does not suggest anything rising to the level of “gross abuse of power” by the defendents. “Try as it might, PTO has not succeeeded in meeting the high standard required to make a constitutional mountain out of this planning dispute molehill,” he wrote.
The trash transfer station issue has been a contentious one between the two parties since 2003, when PTO submitted a site plan review seeking to operate a “railroad shipping operations/transfer station for refuse” on the property. After several reviews and filings, the city determined in December of 2004 that the PTO’s zoning certificate may have been issued in error and the law department concluded that a trash transfer station was not an allowed use under the city’s zoning ordinance and would thus require a variance.
In January, 2005, PTO appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to the Zoning Board, and it was denied. PTO then filed an appeal in Superior Court, and, in 2006, the court reversed the Zoning Board of Review’s decision and ordered the city to issue a permit to PTO.
Despite this reversal, PTO reportedly has not received approval from the Rhode Island Department of Enviromental Management to operate its proposed facility on the property, according to Smith.  The city subsequently appealed the Superior Court’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, where is remains pending.
Alarmed at the prospect of noise and truck traffic being generated by a trash transfer station, the Pawtucket Foundation, representing local business owners and real estate developers, joined city officials in opposing the project. Attorney Michael Horan represents the Foundation as well as several abutting property owners in the Supreme Court case.