After hearing numerous residents in the Farmington area speak out Nov. 6 against a proposed hot mix facility, Kent County’s Regional Planning Commission could not give the plan its blessing.

    Commissioners voted 5-0 Nov. 13 to recommend denial of the facility, stating the rural farming community on Route 13, north of Nine Foot Road, is not the right place for it. The plan, which is a conditional use, now goes before Kent County Levy Court for a final vote.

    Commissioners Ken Edwards and Clifton Coleman Jr. were absent from the monthly business meeting.

    In his motion to deny the plan, Commissioner Paul Davis expressed concerns about the chemicals that would be released into the air, public safety and the impact the plant would have on the Delaware Department of Transportation’s corridor preservation of Route 13.

    In an email Davis received from an engineer at the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, it is estimated that with the hot mix plant and the yet-to-be-built Eastern Short Environmental trash transfer facility, located adjacent to the proposed site, a truck would enter via Route 13 every 2.5 minutes.

    “I realize ESE got approved there but I didn’t vote for it because of the corridor preservation and other reasons,” Davis said. “… It is inconsistent with the rural farming area in this respect, surrounded by [Agricultural Conservation and Agricultural Residential zoning]. In that particular area we have another public safety issue regarding farm tractors pulling heavy equipment.”

    Commissioner Denise Kaercher visited a hot mix plant in Cheswold about eight times since the public hearing, and while the smell of the facility wasn’t offensive, it was what she saw and heard that was.

    At one point, there were six trucks in line waiting to enter the plant and the sound of the machines was distinctive, she said.

    “Most of the times I went, I heard the ‘beep, beep, beep’ that I can’t stand as the trucks were backing up,” Kaercher said. “They were not the trucks that were loading, they were the front-end loaders, or whatever, that were dumping the aggregates so it’s not something that a big turn radius is going to [help].”

    What bothered her the most, however, were the piles of stone aggregates used to make the asphalt.

    “They were mountains, they were huge,” Kaercher said. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a berm with 25-year-old pine trees could not possibly hide these huge piles that were all over.”

Proposed school moved on without action

    The conditional use application to build a school on Plain Dealing Road near Magnolia will move on to Levy Court without a recommendation from the Regional Planning Commission.

    Under the commission’s bylaws, an application must receive four affirmative votes to carry a recommendation to approve or deny, said Planning Director Sarah Keifer. The motion to recommend approval of Dover Montessori Country Day School received two votes in favor from Commissioners Bill Jester and Kaercher, while Commissioners Gene Thornton, Davis and Chairman Bill Holmes voted against it, saying it’s the wrong location for a school.

    At issue was the possibility of expanding the proposed 53-student school in the future, safety concerns from next-door neighbors who own horses, the lack of sidewalks on Plain Dealing Road and the overall safety along the road.

    “This has been a very difficult issue for me,” Davis said. “… I think the road conditions down there are actually deplorable. I’ve heard DelDOT say at these meetings that they were going to be improving that road. I’ve heard that for at least 10 years. I’ve seen nothing.”

    Thornton, who said she supports the school, just not the location, questioned the need for a tennis court at a school with such young children.

    The school’s owner Margaret Kling said they offer tennis lessons, among others like yoga, at its present location in Dover Air Park.

    “We are a private school and parents do expect these kinds of lessons to be given,” Kling said. “… We like to provide a full program for the students.”

    In voting in favor of the plan, Kaercher stressed that she was voting for a school of 53 students and not a larger one.

    According to previous testimony, the school originally planned to enroll more than 100 students, but a school larger than 53 students would require a DelDOT traffic impact study, which is not feasible because the school plans to open in September 2009.

    Levy Court will vote on both applications at its Tuesday, Nov. 25, public hearing beginning at 7:15 p.m. in the Kent County Administrative Complex, 555 Bay Road, Dover.