Matt Poeppelman, co-owner of the C.F. Poeppelman Company, located in Bradford, Ohio, discusses with Brookville planning commission the request to construct a concrete mixing plant in the city.
Terry Baver | The Register-Herald
BROOKVILLE — Planning commission approved a special usage and site plan from the C.F. Poeppelman Company that will allow for the construction of a concrete mixing plant in the city.
“C.F. Poeppelman Inc, doing business as Pepcon, has submitted a special use application to construct a concrete mixing plant on Sakura Drive,” Brookville Law Director Rod Stephan told planning commission.
“The facility would be located on approximately six acres of land now owned by the Green Tokai Company,” Stephan continued.
“Green Tokai has agreed to sell the six acres to Pepcon. I have spoken to Green Tokai’s management and they support the project,” Stephan said.
Stephan indicated the six acres will be subdivided from the existing 10.546 acre parcel of land owned by Green Tokai.
Stephan said the property is zoned I-2 (General Industrial District).
“Concrete mixing plants are a special use in the I-2 zoning district as set forth in Section 1145.02(b)(2),” Stephan said, adding a site plan is included with the application.
Stephan indicated approval of the special use application and site plan would include authorizing gravel instead of concrete or pavement for the general truck drive areas.
Stephan noted the site plan provides for a site berm on the north boundary that abuts the R-3 area.
Stephan added a site berm is also planned to be located “adjacent to the land being retained by Green Tokai from the existing 10.546 acres.”
“The side yard and rear yard setbacks are below the 100 foot standard in the I-2 zoning code for special uses,” Stephan said.
“By approving the application, the proposed setbacks set forth in the site plan would be approved,” Stephan continued.
Stephan said the cement storage silos would be 84 feet in height, which he noted “exceeds the building height of 45 feet for the I-2 zoning district.”
According to information provided by the company, C.F Poeppelman is a “fifth generation aggregate producing and ready mix concrete supplying company.”
“My brother Ben and I are co-owners of C.F Poeppelman, Inc,” Matt Poeppelman told planning commission.
Poeppelman said the company is “broken down into two business models.
“One is our limestone quarry business based in Bradford, Ohio,” Poeppelman said.
“That’s where we do all our manufacturing and production of crushed limestone, sand and gravel and associated products like that,” Poeppelman said.
Poeppelman said the other side of the business is the ready mix concrete division called Pepcon.
“We have a location in Bradford on site at the quarry (main office). We have a plant in Versailles, Ohio, and we have one in Union City (Ind.),” Poeppelman said.
Poeppelman said the Brookville location would be the company’s fourth ready mix concrete plant.
Poeppelman explained how a ready mix concrete plant operates.
“We truck in raw materials (powdered cement) hauled in a bulk tanker. Crushed limestone and natural sand is hauled in from our Bradford quarry and placed in storage bunkers at this location,”Poeppelman said.
Poeppelman said the raw materials are placed in a ground storage bin by a front loader and then the raw materials are transported by a conveyor belt to the top of the plant.
Poeppelman said once the raw materials are weighed and measured, based on the needs of the customer, the materials are mixed with the powdered cement, water and any other needed chemicals and placed in the cement truck.
“The drum on the truck mixes everything and the truck heads on down the road,” Poeppelman said.
Planning commission member Ken Claggett asked about dust control.
“It’s a closed system when you’re loading it from the bulk tanker into the silo and then from the silo into the truck,” Poeppelman said.
“The gravity flows down in so that’s where the silo to truck interface is where this dust collection system collects the dust and regenerates it back into the silos,” Poeppelman continued.
“What about dust created from the gravel road the trucks will use to get from the road to the plant. You obviously can’t collect the dust created from the trucks using the gravel road to the plant,” councilmember Curt Schreier said.
“It is much easier for us to control dust if there is gravel. So we use liquid calcium chloride that we spray onto the gravel. The calcium chloride adheres to the gravel and suppresses the dust,” Poeppelman replied.
Poeppelman noted in the negotiations with Green Tokai to purchase the land, his company committed to spraying the gravel twice a year, which, he said, would be more than sufficient to suppress the dust.
“So you never get neighborhood complaint from dust getting on things like vehicles,” planning commission chairperson Ryan Henderson asked.
“We have never had that complaint,” Poeppelman answered.
Henderson asked Poeppelman about noise from the plant.
“We are good stewards. I would say if the neighbors would ever complain about anything it would be a loader backing down the ramp early in the morning because of the backup warning horn beeping,” Poeppelman said.
Stephan said because the plant will be built in an isolated area, there shouldn’t be any noise complaints
“This is a very isolated site. There’s nothing really close in terms of residential property,” Stephan said.
Planning commission member Dennis Piper asked about the volumes of trucks in and out of the plant during the daytime.
“The concept we are looking at is about four trucks stationed at the Brookville location on a daily basis, meaning four drivers, plus a batch guy and maybe a salesperson at the plant on a daily basis,” Poeppelman replied.
“A typical job is an hour by the time the truck leaves the plant and comes back. So you have four trucks that could leave the plant on a daily basis during an eight-hour shift. That kind of gives you what I would say is more of a worse case scenario. Most days are not quite like that,’ Poeppelman added.
“What about the trucks bringing the aggregate into Brookville? Do you have quarries at any of the other locations or is Bradford the only one? Schreier asked.
“Bradford is the only quarry we have, so the Versailles plant and the Union City, Ind., plant are almost the models for Brookville. They have the ground bunker system and we use over-the-road dumps to haul in the materials and dump them into the bunkers. That’s where it is stored,”Poeppelman said.
“How many of these trucks roll in a day?” Schreier asked.
“Each truck is about 23 ton and I would say you would have 300 ton of material available on the ground at all times to handle big volume jobs,” Poeppelman said.
“What we typically do is to try to keep a steady flow. We usually have one guy running routes all day long. He might make five trips from Bradford to Brookville in a day. He will deliver gravel and crushed limestone a few times and then he’ll deliver natural sand a few times,” Poeppelman continued.
Schreier voiced concern with all the truck traffic from the company possibly damaging the roads.
Stephan said damaging the roads shouldn’t be a problem.
“The industrial park roads there are built to handle heavy truck traffic. We have truck traffic from Green Tokai come out of there every day,” Stephan said.
Poeppelman said Brookville was the logical location for the company’s fourth plant.
“Why Brookville is attractive to us is it’s kind of the right proximity from our other plants in that you can share trucks back and forth, or if there is a job halfway between Bradford and here, you can attack it from both locations because all of our materials are the same,” Poeppelman said.
At the conclusion of discussion, Claggett, Piper, Schreier and mayor Chuck Letner voted in favor of the plant while Henderson voted against it.
Planning commission members Rhonda Dittrick and Anthony Ezersksi were absent.
Reach Terry Baver at [email protected].
