A construction company will erect a temporary portable asphalt plant on a West Industries Road property for use during the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Revive I-70 project.
Rieth-Riley Construction Company appeared Nov. 13 before the Richmond Board of Zoning Appeals for relief from variances requiring landscaping and screening of outdoor storage. All five variances were granted.
The three-phase Revive I-70 project involves widening the highway to three travel lanes in each direction, reconfiguring the U.S. 40 and Williamsburg Pike/U.S. 35 interchanges with roundabouts, and improving bridges. Construction on the first phase, from the Ohio state line to just past Williamsburg Pike, will begin early next year.
A site plan Rieth-Riley presented shows the asphalt plant in the northeast corner of the 47-acre lot at 2100 W. Industries Road. Stockpiles of materials necessary to manufacture the hot mix asphalt would extend south from the plant itself. An Indiana Municipal Power Agency solar park borders the property on the east.
Rieth-Riley did not need a variance for the asphalt plant itself because the plant is a permitted use within high intensity industrial zoning. The property’s zoning was changed to high intensity industrial in May 2022 when Tennessee-based Metal Max LLC planned to manufacture metal roofing and siding on the site. That plan never came to fruition.
The asphalt plant is permitted to operate until Dec. 15, 2031.
In April, Rieth-Riley applied for variances from the Richmond BZA and the Wayne County Board of Zoning Appeals for locations to place the temporary asphalt plant. Both requests encountered difficulty during their hearings and were withdrawn before returning to the BZAs for decisions.
The city request was for 450 W. Industries Road, which is across from Hill’s Pet Nutrition. That request was delayed because paperwork had been filed just 23 days before the April 10 hearing, when the city’s unified development ordinance requires 28 days.
Rieth-Riley requested a variance from the county for the northwest corner of the Interstate 70 and Indiana 1 interchange. Four members of the BZA deadlocked 2-2 when voting whether the plant would cause substantial adverse impact on neighbors, such as the Recover Works addiction treatment facility to the north and Taconic Biosciences in the Gateway Industrial Park. The tie vote meant the full five-person board needed to consider the variance during a subsequent meeting.
The Richmond BZA also approved in January a variance allowing Milestone Contractors to construct a portable asphalt plant at 3408 Chester Blvd.
Other decisions
- Jesse Merk, a real estate developer, received a special exception to use a former garage as an accessory dwelling behind 1415 Harris St. Merk will renovate the garage he said had previously been used as a dwelling without zoning approval.
- Contractor Wade Robertson received a variance of development standards that reduced a minimum front-yard setback from 75 feet to 50 feet for new construction at 2771 Bryant Drive in the city’s two-mile fringe. Robertson built the home, which is on a corner lot, not realizing it needed front-yard setbacks both on Bryant Drive and Nolands Fork Road.
A version of this article appeared in the November 20 2024 print edition of the Western Wayne News.