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Contractor agrees to cut hours of noisy dirt-moving project
By George W. Davis
Special to the Beacon Journal
Published on Monday, Jul 21, 2008
GREEN: Neighbors seeking help from city officials because of noise and dust from road construction in a housing development appear to have a friend in city officials and even the project's contractor.
Merlin Drive resident Bob Round said he is the development's neighbor and was just asking for some help from the dust.
City Planning Director Wayne Wiethe and H.M. Miller Construction's Jeff Leisenring have agreed.
The developer has agreed to a 30-day moratorium on working Saturdays and will limit work hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
The agreement came after the planning commission put off a request last week to renew for another year a preliminary plan for the remaining 112 lots in the Kings Ridge subdivision on the northeast corner of East Caston and Cottage Grove roads.
Leisenring said his firm has been working on the Hartington and Broadley circles project since March to lower a large knoll. About 150,000 cubic yards of dirt have been removed to other Green projects.
He estimated that at the current pace, the work could be completed by August 2009. Other companies had worked the project for three years and removed only about 20,000 cubic yards of dirt, he said.
Round has urged city planners to force the contractor to move the processing of dirt off the site to help cut noise and dust. He likens the project to a mining project for which there is no permit.
Leisenring, a Green resident, said his firm, based in Mogadore, already has silenced the piercing noise of the backup warning signal on the firm's loader with permission from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He also agreed to work with residents to further reduce the noise.
To move the soil conditioning process off the site, he said, would require a mining permit from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
City Planning and Zoning Commission member Gerard Neugebauer said he's a ''little embarrassed for the city.''
''We never granted a mining permit,'' he said. ''The problem is the developer feels he has the license to do a mining operation.''
Merlin Drive resident Karen Herbert said dust has already damaged her pool pump and window cranks.
''What is it doing to my son's lungs?'' she asked.
Neighbor Ed Dalton said he doesn't mind the developers taking all the dirt they want.
''Stop the mining,'' he said.
Planning commission member John Beese said he believes the developer, Green Land Trust, is running ''roughshod'' over the neighbors.
GREEN: Neighbors seeking help from city officials because of noise and dust from road construction in a housing development appear to have a friend in city officials and even the project's contractor.
Get the full article here.

