Commission recommends PUD rezoning and future land-use change for Portland Avenue site; conditions added for screening, access and river-buffering
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Summary
The commission recommended changing the city’s future land-use map to General Commercial and approved a planned-unit development to permit a batch plant and sand mining at NE 30 4th Street, subject to conditions for screening, frontage improvements and protections for the riverbank.
The New Castle Planning and Building Commission recommended a future land-use map amendment and approval of a planned-unit development (PUD) that would allow a batch plant, sand mining and related industrial uses on a large parcel near NE 30 4th Street and Portland Avenue.
City planner Logan Gray presented the request (R2025-011) and explained that the applicant seeks to re-designate approximately 98.104 acres from the 2040 plan’s Mixed Use Residential and Commercial designation to General Commercial, and to adopt a PUD that permits IM1-type industrial uses plus specifically allowed heavy uses (concrete/asphalt batch plant and sand mining) under controlled locations and design standards. Gray said the PUD limits where heavy uses can operate, requires site-specific detailed plans before building permits, and requires remediation plans for sand mining that meet Oklahoma Department of Mines regulations.
Gray described required project standards: public water is available from a 12-inch line on NE 30 4th Street; sewer is unavailable and on-site septic/aerobic systems would be required; portions of the site lie in the FEMA floodplain and the PUD prohibits structures in the floodplain and requires Newcastle floodplain permitting for disturbances. Staff recommended that site access be taken from NE 30 4th Street (not Portland Avenue) and proposed a 2-inch asphalt overlay along the property frontage once the batch plant becomes operational to mitigate heavy-truck impacts. The PUD also specifies facade and screening standards and requires a 6-to-8-foot masonry or stucco wall where the property abuts residential uses; the applicant requested an amendment that would allow wooden stockade screening with masonry columns in some places, which staff said is acceptable only with additional screening and evergreen plantings where vegetation is lacking.
Applicants and consultants told the commission the sand mining would be surface mining on upland bench areas above the river rather than dredging the river channel, and they said mining would be subject to state reclamation and Department of Mines oversight. Commissioners and speakers asked for clear language that the borrow pit would not be excavated into the river channel and for a vegetated buffer or maintained vegetation between the borrow pit and the river to reduce erosion risk; the applicant agreed to add those protections to the PUD language.
Public commenters raised concerns about noise, dust, truck routing, hours and visual impacts. The commission adopted conditions intended to reduce neighborhood impacts: require 2-inch asphalt overlay along the site frontage (applicant to coordinate construction timing), require screening and fencing consistent with the PUD with masonry columns and evergreen plantings where vegetation gaps exist, limit access to NE 30 4th Street and prohibit access from Portland Avenue, require entrance geometry and depth to accommodate semi-trucks, and add a preservation buffer or equivalent vegetation between the borrow pit and the riverbed and a reclamation plan to meet Department of Mines requirements.
Commissioners voted unanimously to recommend amending the future land-use map to General Commercial and to recommend approval of the PUD subject to the discussed conditions; the items will move to city council for final action.
