By Heidi Cenac
ANDERSON COUNTY — Plans to put a landfill on Hamlin Road were stifled Tuesday night as the Anderson County Council voted unanimously to put a weight restriction on the road and start the zoning process in the Three & Twenty precinct.
The weight restriction prohibits trucks that have more than six wheels and weigh more than 25,000 pounds from traveling on Hamlin Road in the northern part of the county. And with the ordinance to adopt a zoning map, County Council also approved a moratorium on building in the Three & Twenty voting precinct.
More than 1,500 people signed a petition requesting that the precinct’s residents be allowed to vote on zoning, and at least 10 people spoke in favor a zoning referendum during Tuesday night’s public hearing. No one spoke against a referendum.
The zoning referendum would go before voters during a special election Aug. 12.
Jim Brown, a partner with Greenpointe, the company behind the landfill, said he felt as if the county led him on by telling him that he’d met their approvals and negotiating tonnages, then coming out against the project.
But Anderson County Planning Director Jeff Ricketson said that’s a misunderstanding. The county didn’t have cause to deny Greenpointe a land-use permit when the company applied three years ago. The permit expired after one year, and when the company reapplied, its plans didn’t comply with the county’s solid waste plan.
“You can talk all day about whether Anderson County was for it,” said Anderson County Council member Ron Wilson. “The people (who) lived in this community were never for it. … I’m for stopping this landfill, whatever it takes.”
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