Latest news with #FCCEnvironmental
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
West Seventh garbage truck depot wins City Council's OK
Despite months of neighborhood opposition, a trash truck depot will indeed move forward on Randolph Avenue. West Seventh Street residents opposed to a planned compressed natural gas refueling station and trash truck maintenance facility at 560 Randolph Ave. were dealt a decisive setback on Wednesday when the St. Paul City Council voted 6-0 to deny their appeal of FCC Environmental's site plan following its approval by the Planning Commission. Members of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation had hoped to add a series of conditions to the site plan, beyond two technical items tacked on by the Planning Commission on May 2, which included further review of the location's stormwater management system. They were unsuccessful Wednesday. Council President Rebecca Noecker recused herself from the vote on the advice of the city attorney's office, after asking the trash hauler to consider more community benefits. 'If FCC wishes to claim Public Works status, they should abide by that standard,' said Julia McColley, executive director of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, addressing the city council. 'If West Seventh is to bear the burden for the entirety of St. Paul, all of your wards, the negative impacts on our neighborhood must be mitigated.' Days after presenting the Texas-based trash hauler with a sweeping list of demands, members of the Fort Road Federation limited their asks on Wednesday to four key areas. 'We ask that FCC stop inappropriate traffic patterns to and from the site, particularly cutting through the Schmidt (Brewery) site,' McColley said. She also asked that the hauler limit the total number of trash trucks to 36, and not expand to as many as 80 trucks to serve nearby cities, a goal that company officials have called entirely possible. She asked the city to prohibit other businesses from refueling at the compressed natural gas station, and to block FCC Environmental employees from parking along Randolph Avenue. The trash hauler has not publicly agreed to any of those items, and neither the Planning Commission nor the city council expressed interest in formally requiring them. 'I do really encourage more communication between FCC Environmental and the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation,' said Council Member Nelsie Yang, urging the two sides to negotiate face-to-face. Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher told the council that FCC Environmental has expressed willingness to meet with the federation and consider 'solutions that work for everyone,' but caselaw made it inappropriate to saddle the site plan with conditions removed from the zoning code. As for future meetings with FCC, 'we intend to help facilitate that,' Tincher said. 'We absolutely believe they can be addressed in a meeting following the site plan process. … The residents' concerns, from what I've heard, they're valid. We want this to be good for everybody.' A former tow lot, the four-acre site at 560 Randolph Ave. has been the subject of tough scrutiny and heated debate between neighborhood residents, the international trash hauler, the city council and mayor's office. On April 14, Mayor Melvin Carter vetoed the city council's decision to support a zoning appeal filed by the federation, which had questioned whether the privately-owned site met the zoning definition of a public works yard. FCC Environmental began citywide residential trash collection on April 1, but only after the mayor declared a state of local emergency to effectively bypass the zoning dispute. On May 19, Noecker's legislative aide shared a laundry list of asks with FCC Environmental, on behalf of the neighborhood organization, including an air quality monitor, local organics drop-off and for the city to establish a nearby park. 'We were supposed to meet on Tuesday of last week, and FCC pulled out of the meeting and said they wanted to wait until the site plan process was done,' Noecker said Thursday. 'Clearly, there's a lot of anger and frustration on the part of the community. I texted the mayor this morning, I spoke with the director of the Fort Road Federation this morning. They're ready and eager to meet.' The future trash depot, which currently consists of two administrative buildings and a gravel lot, relies on a septic system and will need to be connected to the city's sanitary sewer system, said Tia Anderson, a city planner and project manager. Randolph Avenue, which is a county road, will gain some landscape buffering, a six-foot-tall decorative screening fence, infill sidewalks and boulevard trees along the site's property lines, and as a condition of the site plan, the Capitol Region Watershed District will conduct further review of any stormwater and watershed issues. Otherwise, 'FCC's site plan meets all the standards required through the law and the St. Paul legislative code,' said Greg Revering, a general manager for the trash hauler, noting the Planning Commission gave the site plan its unanimous approval May 2. Climate action group schedules first Ward 4 candidate forum for Tuesday Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary likely to be renamed Wakan Tipi Letters: Preventing landlords from screening tenants is a one-sided view of our housing problem Ben Shardlow: The soon-to-close recycling plant and environs are places we should love, or learn to St. Paul: At Highland Bridge, Weidner Homes, Ryan Cos. win concessions
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter's veto ups ante over trash with city council
Upping the ante in a zoning dispute involving the city council and St. Paul's designated new citywide trash hauler, Mayor Melvin Carter has vetoed the memorialization, or recording, of the March 19 council vote that blocked FCC Environmental from pursuing a trash truck maintenance, dispatch and refueling facility at 560 Randolph Ave. The City Council voted 5-0 last month to support a zoning appeal filed by the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, driven by neighborhood residents opposed to a new trash truck facility planned on Randolph Avenue, about two blocks off West Seventh Street. The zoning change effectively blocked FCC Environmental from situating 30 trash trucks at the former tow lot, though the company was able to do so anyway as a result of the mayor's declaration of a local 'state of emergency,' which the council this month agreed to extend by 90 days. The result, for now, is that FCC Environmental has been able to pick up residential garbage from trash carts citywide, as long planned, though it leaves open the question what happens in 90 days. The company, based in Texas and Spain, is in the midst of seeking the city's site plan review for its proposed compressed natural gas station, to complement truck washing and maintenance at 560 Randolph Ave. Citywide collection began April 1. The mayor's decision to veto the council's memorialization of its March 19 vote is intended to keep the appeal of a Planning Commission decision off the books, thereby rendering it invalid. It's unclear if the council has enough votes to override his veto. 'Our successful launch of the citywide partnership with FCC Environmental Services has now completed its second week of operations, delivering essential services to St. Paul households as planned under our seven-year contract agreement,' said Carter, in a four-page letter to the council dated Monday. The council's decision to adopt 'the memorialization required by City Charter and State Statute … undermines our legal standing, contractual obligations, and long-term service stability,' Carter wrote. 'By reversing a valid zoning clarification without a proper legal basis, the Council risks disrupting trash hauling operations across St. Paul, exposing taxpayers to litigation, and sending a deeply troubling signal to future investors and developers.' The zoning dispute hinged on whether 560 Randolph Ave., which is zoned for 'light industrial' uses, can legally sustain dozens of trash trucks serving the entire city and a compressed natural gas facility. The zoning code is silent on those particular uses, but city officials likened them to a Public Works yard, which is indeed allowed under 'light industrial' zoning. The Planning Commission voted to support the interpretation that the proposed trash truck facility was 'substantially similar in character' to a Public Works yard, but the city council voted 5-0 to support the appeal filed by the West Seventh/Fort Federation, even with FCC Environmental scheduled to begin citywide collection less than two weeks later. At the time of the council's March 19 vote, Council President Rebecca Noecker noted that the Planning Commission failed to review comparisons of how much traffic is generated by a garbage truck facility compared to a Public Works yard, whose trucks are generally lighter than garbage trucks. 'The impact on pedestrians, on traffic … is simply different,' she said at the time. Noecker, who represents the neighborhood, also emphasized that the Randolph-West Seventh Street intersection is a designated 'neighborhood node' under the city's Comprehensive Plan, which highlights certain intersections as priorities for planning, transit, pedestrian safety and neighborhood amenities. She noted that city staff failed to include 19 of 27 letters to the Planning Commission in commissioner packets before their public hearing, including key documents provided by the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation around site planning. At Noecker's urging, the council voted 5-0 to support the appeal. Council Member Cheniqua Johnson was absent and the Ward 4 seat formerly held by Mitra Jalali was vacant at the time. Neighborhood residents, taken off guard by FCC acquiring the Randolph Avenue tow lots, have brought up safety concerns around the proposed trash truck facility, noting large trucks would drive in and out for cleaning, maintenance and refueling on a near-constant basis. They've said the industrial use undermines longstanding efforts to create a better pedestrian path to the Mississippi River and add residential uses to and near the site, which sits in an industrial area near the former Schmidt Brewery. Meanwhile, FCC Environmental has made no secret of its hopes to cement contracts with more cities in the Twin Cities, raising concerns with opponents that far more than 30 trucks may someday be situated at 560 Randolph Ave. Carter, in his letter to the council this week, noted that Noecker and the council voted to support changing the site's zoning to 'light industrial' as recently as 2022. The mayor spelled out a legal basis to support FCC Environmental, which bought the site last summer. 'Minnesota courts have repeatedly instructed municipalities to interpret zoning ordinances in favor of property owners where ambiguity exists,' the mayor wrote. 'Because FCC's proposed facility is reasonably similar in function to permitted public works operations — such as the city's own facility at 899 Dale Street — it meets the legal threshold for approval. Even when alternative interpretations exist, a reasonable claim by the property owner must prevail.' The mayor also noted that the city's 2040 Plan 'explicitly permits industrial uses within areas designated neighborhood nodes, particularly where those uses predate redevelopment. In fact, other industrial facilities—including City-owned ones—are already operating in neighborhood nodes all over St. Paul.' Under FCC Environmental's seven-year contract with St. Paul, the company will employ about 60 workers and service 90% of the city's street and alley routes as of April 1, with St. Paul Public Works crews serving the rest. Hearing more planes overhead? 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Yahoo
05-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Joe Soucheray: Test the sirens! The season of Trash Emergencies is upon us!
The first three days of the Trash Emergency were cloaked in gloom. We weren't under a watch. We were in a warning. Not exactly despair, but resignation set in, as though sheltering in the basement and sprinkling the children with holy water were to be the accommodating ministrations. The collection of our bins was in jeopardy. That is, the collection of our bins was in jeopardy until the mayor declared a Trash Emergency, a power we didn't know the mayor even had nor had the power ever been previously used. It wasn't an entirely chaotic start. After the new hauler, FCC Environmental Services, came through, some bins were tipped over in the street, some were on their backs in the yard and couldn't get up. But certainly, a disaster was averted and we were spared photographs in the newspapers of uncollected piles of garbage, like we sometimes see from Rome or New York. Unfortunately, the Trash Emergency is good for only 90 days, unless mayors have a post-trash-emergency emergency they can pull from their vest. A recent communication breakdown appears to be the root of the problem, although a great many of us looking for the problem would go back seven years or so when the city fixed a system that wasn't broken. Out went the family-owned haulers and in came only five haulers, all to ostensibly reduce noise and save the Earth, neither of which happened anyway. And then, just when we were finally getting to at least a hand-waving familiarity with one of the big five haulers, out they go in favor of FCC Environmental, which won the current bidding process. That was last year, August, even months ago. FCC bought property at the foot of Randolph Avenue at Shepard Road. It's a big brown field surrounded by a chain-link fence. They bought the land after a developer probably gave up on it because not many developers want to develop in St. Paul with rent control breathing down their necks. It's been a big brown field for as long as anyone can remember. This is where FCC would dispatch trucks, wash them and fuel them with compressed natural gas. FCC had it clarified from the city zoning administrator that FCC's intention for the land fit with I-1 zoning, light industrial, similar to the uses of a public works yard. They were going to build a headquarters and pay property taxes. Good to go! Whoa, hold up a minute. The West Seventh/Fort Road Federation got the ear of the city Planning Commission and appealed, but the commission supported the stance taken by the city staff. The neighborhood advocates then went to the least diverse city council in America, who probably had to put down a resolution they were studying to preserve sand in the Polynesian Islands, and the next thing you know, the council voted to uphold the neighborhood federation's appeal and right on the cusp of its April 1 start date, FCC had no base of operations. A war within a war seems to have developed. Mayor Melvin Carter told the council that they had plunged the city into crisis. He called the Trash Emergency. That was for three days, but the council did vote to allow a 90-day Trash Emergency. Council President Rebecca Noecker, presumably smarting, told the mayor and FCC that they had better use the 90 days to find a new site for that $25 million dispatch center. If you were dropped out of a spaceship having never seen Earth, and shown the land in question, you'd say, 'This looks like a place where a trash-hauling company might operate.' But not in St. Paul. Not to worry. We're playing with house money. Still more than 80 days to go with the Trash Emergency, all the time in the world. Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@ Soucheray's 'Garage Logic' podcast can be heard at Joe Soucheray: Any way you cut it, that Signal chat was amateur hour Joe Soucheray: Walz is more like Trump than he would care to believe Joe Soucheray: St. Paul Johnson's hockey team was the pride of the city Joe Soucheray: A little DOGE goes a long way. Be careful with the mail. Letters: St. Paul's West End has long had to fight for its character
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
St. Paul has April 1 deadline to solve trash company's land dispute
The Brief St. Paul residents won't have their garbage collected starting April 1 if the city can't reach an agreement with a new hauler on land for a facility. The St. Paul City Council voted unanimously against FCC Environmental using land at 560 Randolph St. for a garbage facility. Mayor Melvin Carter could declare a state of emergency to keep the garbage pick-up going. ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The City of St. Paul has five days to figure out a garbage hauler service's land agreement, or residents will have nobody to take away their trash. City officials had a plan to use land at 560 Randolph Street to store and service their garbage trucks, but the city council voted unanimously against that last week. Why you should care If Mayor Melvin Carter and the city can't reach a resolution, there will be no garbage pick-up for residents starting April 1. That's no joke on April Fool's Day. City council members voted 5-0 to block the garbage company, FCC Environmental, from putting its truck yard on the lot they bought in the summer of 2024. The hauler services about 60,000 residents across the city. Dig deeper The city council's vote came after neighborhood residents complained the trash company's facility would harm long-term plans for residential, mixed-use and transit development in the area. Carter told city council members in a letter that the vote blocking the use of the land creates the possibility for a breach of contract with the garbage hauler. That would result in lawyers getting involved, and no trash service. Carter says he hasn't ruled out declaring a state of emergency to make sure garbage hauling continues. What we know St. Paul City Council President Rebecca Noecker said at last week's meeting the lot shouldn't be for a trash yard because of its zoning, which is currently "light industrial." The site would be busy with three dozen heavy trucks in operation. Carter contends city officials determined the land was appropriate for a truck facility, comparing it to public works. The city council president says it would see more heavy truck traffic than a public works facility. What they're saying Officials with FCC Environmental said the city plans for residential development near the site haven't come together, and there are no grounds to deny using the land. Carter wants the city council to call an emergency meeting to hold another vote.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What's the deal with the trash collection controversy in St. Paul?
The future of trash hauling in St. Paul has come under a cloud of uncertainty in recent weeks due to the competing views of the city council and Mayor Melvin Carter. The St. Paul City Council voted 5-0 on Wednesday to block FCC Environmental, the city's new trash collection contractor, from parking and refueling its vehicles at 560 Randolph Ave., where it ultimately intends to build a $25 million vehicle maintenance facility. Carter submitted a letter to the council on Thursday criticizing the decision. He urged the council to call for an emergency meeting, and even suggested he could declare a state of local emergency, with the new trash collection contract going into effect on April 1. But Council President Rebecca Noecker said that FCC Environmental had planned on starting collections even without the Randolph Avenue facility operational, and was already handling the city's recycling collections. The city announced last May it had struck a 7-year deal with UK-based FCC Environmental Services to serve as St. Paul's new trash collection partner, with recycling service starting in November 2024 and trash service on Apr. 1, 2025. As part of the deal, FCC agreed to invest $25 million in a truck yard and compressed natural gas station within city limits, where it could fuel its 30 compressed gas-powered garbage trucks. St. Paul had shifted to a citywide municipal refuse collection in October 2018, with the collections initially carried out by a consortium of multiple haulers under the banner of St. Paul Haulers, LLC. An initial five-year contract was extended by 18 months in 2023 and is set to expire before April the previous system, St. Paul residents would have to personally contract with a private trash hauler, but the new system sees trash collection organized by the city, with residents designated their hauler based upon location. The new contract however will see a single hauler, FCC, responsible for 90% of St. Paul's residential routes. The change led to at times intense complaints from those in opposition, with Mayor Carter even subjected to racist abuse even though the move towards municipal service started under previous Mayor Chris Coleman. Opponents were successful in having the service put to a ballot question in 2019, but 62.7% voted "yes" to keep municipal service. The city council backed an appeal filed by the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, who argued the city's zoning code doesn't specifically address garbage truck dispatch facilities, with the city's planning commission approving the plan for 560 Randolph under existing zoning for "light industrial" use. Meg Duhr, president of the West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, said during the meeting on Wednesday that the planning commission's decision-making process for the project was "fundamentally flawed and based on incomplete and one-sided information." Duhr also claimed that inaccurate maps and zoning data were presented in a staff report for a meeting after the public feedback section of the hearing had already closed, meaning the organization was unable to respond to or correct any errors that may have come up. "These failures call into question the legitimacy of the commission's vote and the transparency and fairness of the process," Duhr stated. The neighborhood-led effort ultimately helped persuade city council members to block plans for the facility and Carter responded with the belief the decision has "plunged the city into crisis," penned in a letter to the city council submitted on Thursday. "By granting the appeal without a legal basis, the city council is prohibiting a private company who legally purchased a property from using the site to provide essential garbage services to our city, jeopardizing our ability to provide trash services across the city after March 31, 2025, as legally required under Minnesota state law," Carter said. Noecker said during the meeting that even without FCC Environmental's partnership for the proposed facility in place, trash collection is still planned on residential routes on April 1. The company has already been collecting recycling from units dating back to Nov. 1, and are using an alternative refueling station in the meantime. An emergency meeting hasn't been decided upon of Friday afternoon. Bring Me The News reached out to FCC Environmental for comment on Carter's response on Friday but haven't heard back.
