E. Mesa Scrap Metal Yard will Close After County Permit Denial

In recommending a denial for Junior’s Recycling, county planners said owner Eduardo Gonzalez was operating an industrial business that is not allowed in its C-3 zoning.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Maricopa County Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously last month to deny a Special Use Permit for a metal collection business in East Mesa. Planners said it had been running for four years out of compliance with its general commercial zoning.

Following the 8-0 vote to deny, a representative for the business near Main Street and Ellsworth Road said it would vacate the property this month. There are no plans yet for the parcel, the spokesman said in an email.

The .69-acre site is located on a county island on the northwest corner of Main Street and 85th Place on the eastern base of Twin Knolls, a chain of mostly undeveloped desert hills surrounded by residential and commercial properties.

 In recommending a denial for Junior’s Recycling, county planners said owner Eduardo Gonzalez was operating an industrial business that is not allowed in its C-3 zoning.

That category is intended for “retail and wholesale commerce and commercial entertainment,” and the use was not compatible with the character of the neighborhood.

Paul Almond, who represented Junior’s at the hearing, told the panel that the applicant considered the business “more of a service” than an industrial use.

He noted that the metal was collected, processed and sorted, but shipped off-site for the actual recycling.

He added there was precedence for allowing this type of business in a commercial zone.

But the board agreed with several neighbors and county staff, who said the activity represented an “intense” industrial use with significant negative impacts on the neighborhood.

“I’ve been doing this longer than I ever thought I would … and I’ve heard every single argument both in favor and in opposition to hundreds and hundreds of cases,” Chairman Lucas Schlosser said. “This group of opposition has been more compelling as far as why not to have this case than almost any case that I’ve ever heard.”

Junior’s Recycling moved to the current location from a nearby site in 2019 without performing a due diligence check of the property zoning, according to county staff. 

Following a complaint in 2021, Maricopa County opened a code compliance case on the business after confirming there was industrial activity on the site.

The business received a $500 fine, and the county agreed to suspend a $50 daily fine if Junior’s submitted all the materials for a special use permit application, setting a Dec. 31, 2023 deadline for it to obtain a permit for industrial uses. 

The permit hearing was Junior’s bid to stay in business at the location.

It received 13 letters of opposition and eight letters of support from customers who said the small business was providing a community benefit.

But opponents living near Junior’s unfurled a long list of complaints at the October hearing.

They said the business ran an excavator that made loud noise and spewed exhaust.

 They complained that workers sawed and sorted metal outside of posted business hours, as early as 6 a.m. and late as 10 p.m. in the summer, generating noise and air pollution close to their homes.

“I can stand in my front door and look to the northwest and see the excavator picking up scrap metal, dropping it into empty bins, and it alternates all day long,” said retired SRP lineman Michael Milligan.

Another neighbor said he can feel the operations “shake” his home.

Neighbors also called the business an eyesore and claimed the scrap yard was leading to increased trash, illegal dumping and metal theft in the vicinity. 

They also said Junior’s did not have enough onsite parking for employees and customers, requiring cars to park in the right-of-way.

“I don’t understand how this has been allowed to run continuously for four years now,” Milligan said. “All I’m asking is to follow the law – C-3 (zoning).”

Milligan shared several anecdotes with commissioners, such as the time someone hauled a burned out van to Junior’s then dumped it in front of his house when the business declined to accept it.

He also described a “continual parade of shopping carts being pushed by scrappers, indigents, homeless people, who push the metal down there and then they come back without the shopping cart,” Milligan continued. “I’ve seen as much as 15 to 20 shopping carts (outside) the east entrance.”

But one speaker and several letters of support said the business should stay.

A garage door business said in a letter that it used Juniors to recycle old doors and said there are “hardly any” other places to drop off recycling in the East Valley.

Almond and another speaker in favor of the permit said the neighbors were unfairly pinning all of the area’s woes on this one business.

Almond also said the business would agree to eliminate the excavator from the site, build an 8-foot perimeter wall and limit its hours of operations as conditions of the permit.

But for the commissioners, the proposed changes were too little, too late.

“We get to see a lot of cases, and to me, this is just really an egregious violation,” Commissioner Jay Swart said.

 “The reason we have rules and laws is because we have to have them, and in this particular case, they have operated for over four years.”

Following the unanimous denial recommendation, Junior’s could have made its case to the Board of Supervisors later this month, but Almond pulled the application following PlanningaAnd Zoning Board’s decision.

A sign posted on the business before press time informed customers that Junior’s would close its doors Nov. 4. 

 Courtesy: www.themesatribune.com