The Mecklenburg County Planning Commission denied a request to rezone two parcels on Highway 92 from agricultural to Industrial M-1 to allow a concrete ready-mix plant, citing extensive resident opposition and commissioners’ concerns about traffic, noise and air quality.
The applicant’s team described a proposed 3-acre industrial footprint that would host a construction entrance, parking, a small office, aggregate storage bins, above-ground admixture containers, two concrete-lined sediment basins and washout pits. Civil engineer Gerald Hooten and representatives for Commercial Ready Mix told the commission the facility would operate within environmental controls and permit regimes including a Virginia Pollution Discharge Elimination Permit and Virginia stormwater management permitting, and that DEQ would monitor water quality reporting. The applicant said normal operating hours would be 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and estimated the plant would dispatch roughly six trucks from the site.
Residents, elected officials and neighbors spoke at length against the rezoning, citing heavy truck traffic already on Highway 92 (used by Microsoft and a nearby landfill), health concerns about dust and silica exposure, worries about well water contamination, and potential property-value loss.
"I'm very concerned about the dust and things that will come into the air... As people get older, they develop asthma, COPD," said Ellen Walker, a registered nurse who lives near Highway 92. "I'm just concerned health wise as far as for me." Anne Snead, another nearby resident, told the commission she did not receive mailed notice of the application and said the increased truck traffic and dust would affect schoolchildren who wait for buses along the route.
The applicant representatives described mitigation plans: locating the active footprint as far back on the site as possible, preserving existing planted pines as a buffer, employing dust suppression (water trucks and sprayers), concrete-lined sediment basins tested and reported to DEQ quarterly for pH and other parameters, and adherence to VDOT comments and county erosion-and-sediment-control oversight. Robert Eley of Commercial Ready Mix said the company is seeking to relocate a plant currently operating on Microsoft property to gain greater operational control and to continue serving local projects.
After public comment, a commissioner moved to deny the rezoning "due to the concerns that have been expressed here tonight." A second was recorded and the commission conducted a roll-call vote; the members present recorded unanimous support for denial. The motion carried; the rezoning request was denied.
The transcript shows the commission considered both the environmental controls proposed and the neighborhood feedback before the vote. Denial means no change of zoning was approved; if the applicant wishes to pursue a similar project it would require a new application and additional outreach to affected property owners.