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Neighbors oppose Bear Creek Fabrication laydown-area permit; commissioners refer SUP to planning board
Summary
Bear Creek Fabrication requested a special-use permit to expand contractor storage on a 3.9-acre parcel adjacent to its manufacturing site. Company experts said the change would reduce handling noise and require no new lighting or utilities; nearby residents testified the expansion will increase truck traffic and noise. The board closed the quasi-judicial hearing and referred the application to the planning board.
Bear Creek Fabrication LLC (Lockley Holdings) asked the Board of Commissioners for a special-use permit to formalize a 3.9-acre storage and staging area adjacent to its existing facility. The hearing was held in quasi-judicial form and included sworn testimony from company witnesses and extensive neighborhood testimony.
Attorney Nick Robinson (speaker 5) presented the application and said the request had been narrowed after community feedback: the owner withdrew an earlier rezoning attempt and limited this filing to a narrowly tailored contractor-storage-use with an added 4–6 foot vegetated berm and supplemental screening. "We thought it was important…to install a berm for sound breaking purposes," Robinson said.
Owner Ryan Dowd (speaker 17) described operational needs: additional laydown space would let crews stage long steel beams and reduce repeated handling. "I don't anticipate any additional noise," Dowd said; he told the board more room should reduce the frequency of loud handling operations.
The applicant introduced expert reports: a real-estate appraisal finding no anticipated adverse impact on surrounding property values (Chris Farris, speaker 6) and a traffic study concluding the site's traffic (estimated ~106 daily trips, PM peak ~19) could be accommodated by Campbell Road without off-site improvements (John Shook, speaker 42). The board admitted those exhibits into the record as part of the evidentiary hearing.
Neighborhood speakers — many of whom live directly adjacent to the parcel — expressed firm opposition, citing frequent truck maneuvers, loud metal handling, safety concerns for a nearby school-bus stop and the prospect that an approved SUP could enable incremental industrial expansion into a rural-residential area. Dwayne Campbell (speaker 43) told commissioners his family has lived in the area for generations and said the laydown yard "would increase the movement of steel beams and the noise factor along with increased tractor trailers."
Because this was a quasi-judicial evidentiary hearing, the applicant formally tendered expert evidence and the board heard neighbors' evidence; the board closed the hearing and referred the application to the planning board for additional consideration and a recommendation back to the board.
