By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — The saga of a proposed construction and demolition transfer station that has worried city officials and business owners for several years appears to finally be over, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling.

Ruling in the city’s favor, the Supreme Court decided that the construction and demolition transfer station that Pawtucket Transfer Operations LLC had wanted to operate on property at 280 Pine Street is not an authorized use under a section of the city’s zoning ordinance. In an opinion written by Justice Francis X. Flaherty, the court quashed a previous Superior Court order that had reversed a determination by Pawtucket’s Zoning Board of Review that such a refuse station was not a permitted use under the ordinance.
The Supreme Court ruling comes on the heels of a recent ruling by a federal court judge that also decided in favor of the city in a separate complaint brought by Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC.
Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC, known as PTO, had first proposed the project to the city back in February 2003. The company wanted to operate a railroad shipping operations/transfer station for refuse on property near the downtown area that is owned by the Providence and Worcester Railroad. According to published reports, the proposed facility would have handled up to 2,000 tons per day of construction and demolition debris. Most of the refuse would have been brought in by trucks, primarily from Massachusetts, and then sorted, processed, and shipped out by railway and trucks to customers nationwide.
City officials and local business owners, backed by the Pawtucket Foundation, were alarmed at the prospect of such an operation in light of the extensive redevelopment of the downtown area for residential, retail and cultural use.
Mayor James C. Doyle said he was “elated” by the Supreme Court’s decision. He said that, had the transfer station been allowed to go forward would have been “devastating to whatever we were trying to do developmentally” downtown.
Referring to the certificate of zoning compliance that was issued by the city to PTO back in 2003, Doyle said he felt the city had been “in a sense, victimized” by one or two employees who didn’t fully understand their job or lacked a complete understanding of the issue. “It put us in a unfavorable light,” said Doyle.
Doyle said he is grateful to have the five-year legal battle finally ended, noting that the city has won in both the Federal and Supreme Court.
Attorney Michael Horan, who represented the Pawtucket Foundation as well as several abutting property owners, said the Supreme Court decision is “clearly a win for the city of Pawtucket.”
“This was a very important decision,” said Horan. “The proposed operation was massive in scope. A huge amount of debris and trash would have been brought through the city. It was our opinion that this could have had a tremendous adverse effect on all the significant gains the city has made over the last few years.”
Richard C. Davis, Executive Director of the Pawtucket Foundation, said, “It is wonderful, to me, to wrap up this case that has been hanging over the city and its future development.” He noted that the amount of debris that the transfer station would have been handling was four times the amount that is processed by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s facility in Johnston. “Truck traffic on that scale hasn’t been seen in downtown since the Industrial Age,” Davis noted.
Assistant City Solicitor Frank J. Milos, Jr., who has handled the case for the city through most of its legal journey, also called it, “A great day for the city.” Noting that PTO has seemingly exhausted its legal avenues at the state level, Milos said, “I look at this as being the end of a long road and I’m just very pleased at the way it turned out.”
Attorney Gregory Benik, who represented PTO, could not be reached for comment.
Back in 2003, an employee in the city’s Division of Zoning and Code Enforcement issued a certificate of zoning compliance to PTO. The certificate indicated that the property, located in a manufacturing open zone, was to be used as a “refuse transfer station” and that it conformed to the city’s zoning ordinance.
PTO then requested a hearing before the Pawtucket Planning Commission for a site review of the project. However, in a 2004 letter, Michael D. Cassidy, director of the city’s Department of Planning and Redevelopment, advised PTO that he and his office considered the zoning certificate to be invalid because a private refuse transfer station is not an allowed use under a specific section of the zoning ordinance.
Cassidy further wrote that PTO would be required to obtain a use variance from the zoning board, and, as such, he declined to schedule a site review.
PTO then appealed to the Zoning Board. After conducting a hearing, the board denied PTO’s appeal, finding that a privately owned refuse transfer station was not a permitted use under the ordinance. Specifically, the board concluded that it was not “unreasonable, capricious or arbitrary” for the planning director to conclude that a refuse transfer station had to be wholly or in-part operated or managed by the city to be an authorized use under the zoning ordinance.
The board also found that PTO’s intended use of the property as a “construction and demolition transfer station” was different from a “refuse transfer station,” was not listed as an allowable use in the ordinance, and, therefore was a prohibited use under the zoning code.
PTO appealed the zoning board’s decision to the Superior Court. In a bench decision the trial judge reversed the zoning board, finding “no definitional or contextual argument” that would support’s the board’s interpretation of the ordinance permitted only refuse transfer stations owned and operated by the municipal government.
The trial judge also found that the board acted “arbitrarily” when it determined that construction and demolition debris did not meet the definition of “refuse” as that term is used in the code.
The trial judge subsequently ordered that the case be remanded to the zoning board so that the board could re-issue a certificate of zoning compliance to PTO.
The City of Pawtucket filed a “petition for certiorari” with the Supreme Court, which was granted on March 8, 2007. After a review, the Supreme Court held that a construction and demolition transfer station is not an authorized use under the specified section of the ordinance.
Court documents state that Michael Cassidy testified that there is no category for a construction and demolition transfer station in the city’s use code, and the court found no evidence to contradict Cassidy’s statements.
The court also wrote that it “cannot conclude that the massive scope of the commercial operations proposed by PTO was contemplated by the Pawtucket City Council when it enacted the section of the ordinance, ot that it intended to permit such a use.
The court further wrote that, because a construction and demolition transfer station is not the same as a refuse transfer station, and the former is not listed as a permitted use in the city’s ordinance, “we hold that a C&D transfer station is not an authorized use under the ordinance.”
The case was also bolstered by an “amicus brief” filed by Attorney General Patrick Lynch’s office holding that decisions regarding local land use should remain, quintessentially, under the purview of local governments.
Tricia Jedele, a lawyer with the attorney general’s office, said that, especially in the case of large-scale solid waste facilities, it is their position that such facilities should not be forced upon local communities and that local governments serve as the first checkpoint in such proposed projects.
This brief was spurred by the knowledge that one of PTO’s principal owners is David Stoller, had established similar transfer stations in New Jersey, Jedele said. These facilities are allowed to exist by way of their definition as railway carriers and, as such, are exempt from many state and local environmental laws.
Stoller is also reportedly linked to similar proposed projects in Cumberland and East Providence, Jedele said.
Attorney General Patrick Lynch released a statement that said “Pawtucket Transfer Operations proposed handling 2,000 tons of construction and demolition debris per day, operating six days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and handling mostly debris from the neighboring State of Massachusetts. The City of pawtucket was absolutely within its rights to decide that this use was not a public use and would not serve to beenfit the Pawtucket Community.”
Lynch added, “I am very pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision on this important land management issue.”