Residents and neighborhood groups urge council to block expansion of metal‑crushing operation near Midtown; council leaves decision for hearing process

Residents and neighborhood leaders urged the council to oppose a special permit that would allow expanded recycling and car‑crushing operations on or near Reno Avenue in the city’s Midtown corridor.

Jeff Trevillion, a nearby resident, said the neighborhood is “east of downtown” and described a long history of noise and “explosions” connected to an industrial recycling facility. Dinavetta Davis, president of the JFK Neighborhood and a leader of the Northeast Oklahoma City Neighborhood Coalition, told council she and neighbors have tracked incidents and air‑quality concerns for years and opposed the expansion. She provided year‑by‑year incident counts in her remarks: she said a noise barrier was installed in 2022 and reported “737 explosions” that year; she reported “2023, '20 '3 explosions” and two industrial fires in 2023; in 2024 she cited 34 explosions and two industrial fires; and she said in 2025 there had already been seven explosions and three complaints to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

David Box, representing the property owner or buyer, told council the application is not for a new facility but for a new buyer to regularize operations. Box said the current operation is a legally nonconforming use and the buyer needs a special permit to make operations conforming; he said the neighboring operator to the east installed a concrete wall due to explosions at their site and the subject property lies just west of that site.

Council members acknowledged neighborhood safety and pedestrian‑access concerns along Reno Avenue and discussed the broader context of downtown‑to‑riverfront connections, MAPS projects and pedestrian infrastructure. Some council members suggested the corridor needs pedestrian safety investments and that the planning process and any hearing should consider those linkages.

The item was on the consent docket and council approved the consent docket as presented. Council members and staff said the proper procedural path to resolve the neighborhood’s concerns is through the planning and special‑permit hearing process; one council member said a denial without a hearing would be effectively denying the applicant prior to a hearing. Staff and the applicant said any sale would require the special permit process to legalize the buyer’s operation; the council did not take separate action to deny the special permit at the meeting.