Dispute over upgrades at Santa Rosa asphalt plant lands before judge

The Santa Rosa asphalt plant under fire for violating city noise levels is now in the hot seat for not getting permits for the very upgrades it hoped would make the plant quieter.

The plant owner and operator, BoDean Co., faces more than $70,000 in fines for installing new machinery last year at the Maxwell Drive facility without securing any building permits from the city.

“What we have heard is they are just repairing equipment, so they don’t need permits,” Mike Reynolds, the city’s senior code enforcement officer, told an administrative law judge Tuesday.

The city, which ordered a halt to the project in May 2016, insists the work needed a variety of building, electrical and mechanical permits to assess the integrity and safety of work on a structure that is more than 50 years old.

“It’s a very basic requirement and typically not ignored once a jurisdiction goes through the step of issuing a stop-work notice,” Reynolds said.

The company contends that it didn’t need building permits because the new equipment is similar to what was replaced, and its status as a grandfathered operation gives it the right to upgrade existing equipment as needed.

“There has never been a history of having to go to the city to do typical repair of equipment that’s worn out,” Dean Soiland, the co-owner of BoDean, told the judge, Karen Reichmann.

The unusual hearing was called in an effort to resolve the long-simmering dispute between the city and BoDean over how much oversight the city has of its operations.

BoDean has run the plant, which makes asphalt largely for local road projects, since 2001. It also owns two quarries in Sonoma County.

The property, which is owned by Atlanta-based Kaiser Sand and Gravel, has been an aggregate operation of some kind since 1953. When it was annexed into the city in the early 1960s, the property was allowed to continue its industrial use under what is known as a “legal non-conforming” status.

The status is meant to allow properties to maintain an existing use even when the surrounding zoning changes. Replacing equipment is considered maintaining the use, but changes that are considered an expansion of the use typically are not allowed.

The issue flared in 2012 when West End neighbors demanded the city require more study of the company’s plan to install three new 82-foot-high storage silos.

Many felt the renovation an inappropriate expansion of the use, but a judge disagreed, and said more environmental review of the $1.5 million project was unnecessary.

The neighbors then conducted a study that found the plant’s operations violated acceptable noise levels measured at the homes closest to the plant. The plant’s own study confirmed the problem, and it agreed to a series of upgrades.

But when the city told BoDean it would need to seek permits, the company did the work without them.

Reynolds submitted numerous photographs of the newly installed equipment, including machinery that heats and blows air into a new, quieter but massive tumbler to dry out batches of sand and gravel before they are mixed with binder to make asphalt.

He also submitted images of new steel structural beams installed to support the heavier equipment, and said officials needed to know the upgrades were sound to ensure people working in and around the structure were safe. He said satellite imagery showed an entire building had been moved without permits.

BoDean’s attorney, David Temblador, said the company has been confused by contradictory notices issued by the city. The company has done its best to clarify the issue and stands ready to submit engineering plans, Temblador said, but not the detailed level of planning review sought by the city.

The city said such a review is the first step to getting the required building permits, but Temblador said previous settlements confirming the company’s legal status made such land-use review unnecessary.

Reichmann said she would issue her ruling within 45 days.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.