By Joyce Miles<br><a href="mailto:joyce.miles@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joyce</a>
TOWN OF LOCKPORT — A Wrights Corners-based recycling center is back on the drawing board.
Tony Porter has revived his proposal for a bottle/can redemption center at 4022 Lake Ave., commercial property across the way from Dollar General.
The property flanked by two residences already holds several Porter businesses: his Newfane General Contracting office and a woodburning stove sales office.
Porter canceled his plans to open a redemption center simultaneously with those offices earlier this year due to a neighbor’s opposition, along with stifled commodity prices in recycling markets.
The plan is back now, he said, because demand for recycling service appears brisk — and should be brisker still once New York State’s 5-cent deposit on bottled water containers kicks in next year.
“I had so many calls after I dropped this, all asking me why. There’s definitely a want for it,” Porter told the planning board Wednesday. “Everybody hates that little machine” at grocery stores, he said. “You get your hands dirty and you have to wait when it’s full or it breaks down.”
Porter proposes using an existing building on the lot as a sorting center for redeemable metal, plastic and glass containers.
Customers — residents only, no businesses — would take their containers to the building in the southwest corner of the lot and carry receipts to the Newfane General Contracting office for cash-out.
Porter said hand-sorting would be done by his teen-age children for now. The containers would be stored in the sorting building temporarily, until they’re picked up by Tomra, formerly Western New York BICS, the company that picks up recyclables from grocery and convenience stores. Porter said he anticipates two tractor-trailer pickups per week from his center.
Porter needs another special use permit from the town in order to open the redemption center. His land is commercially zoned but, as was the case with his wood stove sales business, the proposed use isn’t a routinely allowed use in local zoning law. The planning board set a Nov. 18 public hearing on the request.
Porter is aiming to open the redemption center by Jan. 1. He said he’ll spend about $20,000 making the sorting building ready for customers, mainly by addition of a handicap-access ramp. He’ll also aim to have the center open seven days a week, depending on demand.
In other business Wednesday, the planning board:
n Reviewed the proposed site plan of Alix Development, which wants to construct a building at 6263 S. Transit Road, for tenants Metro Mattress and Safelite.
The proposed building is next to the one currently occupied by Metro Mattress and Signworks, Matt Alix’s business. Metro Mattress would move into new quarters; Arthur Alix did not indicate what would take its place in the existing building.
The board will vote on approving the site plan next week. Alix Development was directed to come up with some design changes to give the building some varying features and make it less boxy. Since it’s in the Commercial Corridor Overlay District, the site plan has to meet special architectural standards as well.
n Approved amendment of the previously approved Pinegrove Estates site plan to allow construction of one more structure near the entrance to the planned community. The structure will be built as a single-family home and will be used as a show house/sales office, according to owner J. Thomas Briody.
