Cohen Recycling laid out its proposed plans at Thursday’s planning commission meeting where it would construct a 10,535-square-foot industrial building, which will be the company’s recycling facility.
The site will also, according to the presented preliminary plans, have short-term truck and trailer parking, and a truck and trailer scale located to the immediate northeast of the recycling building. There will be exterior storage in the southern area, facing 1000 North Third Street, which is adjacent to the railroad to the east.
The planning commission approved the preliminary plan with one of the two requested variances. The first variance is to allow a modular office on-site, which wouldn’t be the first such structure along that stretch of North Third Street. The planning commission did not okay a variance for front yard landscaping but said that issue can be revisited.
The preliminary approval also allowed Cohen Recycling up to 18 months to submit a final plan approval, six months longer than the standard allowance.
The plan needed to go through the planning commission as the project is in an industrial planned development zone.
The proposed land swap, which is anticipated for approval at Wednesday’s City Council meeting Hamilton, would give the city a 3.61-acre site at Maple and East avenues, and Cohen the 4.58-acre site on North Third Street. The recycler would then work to redevelop their current 17.7-acre site, which sits near the 1.2-million-square-foot Spooky Nook Champion Mill development.
Neil Cohen, a co-owner of Cohen Recycling with his brother Ken Cohen, said his company has done “everything that we think we can do to have a viable company that respects the city and the citizens.”
“We’ve taken an 18-acre site with a very robust recycling operation and anticipation of these kinds of things you’re talking about,” Cohen said of the conditions and concerns discussed. “Over the last three years, we’ve reduced our operations to fit on a 3-acre site.”
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