The Boulder Board of Adjustments voted unanimously May 16 to approve a request from Rusty Giulio to use property at the southwestern edge of town for his trucking/construction firm and garbage collection business.
The decision prompted a couple opposed to the plan to threaten a lawsuit. The proposed site is near the former site of Molitor Trucking and a gravel pit. Giulio said the garbage truck will be kept in a shop to be built on the property which will be “just a staging facility to conduct business.” Giulio’s business has been based near the Town Pump for several years, and he said he believes selling that property to the Town Pump will be a win-win because it will allow growth that will benefit the community.
One couple that lives on Centre Street said they strongly oppose the plans. Noting that the area is outside of the city limits but in a one-mile zoning area around the city, Chad and Monica Wygal said the area is zoned residential.
“What Boulder needs is nice, new home development,” said Monica Wygal, arguing that would bring beauty to the community that Giulio’s business would not. The property has been zoned residential for ten years, she said.
Giulio had applied to the board for a conditional use permit, but the Wygals said none of the conditional uses listed under the residential zoning regulations match Giulio’s intended use. Although the area may be designated residential, that is not how the property has ever been used, said Giulio and board members.
“For 40 years it’s been a commercial piece of property,” said Giulio. Sue Pasini, board member, said the zoning regulations allow for existing commercial uses to continue in residential areas as long as there is not more than a year without such use. Reading from the city’s zoning document, she maintained that the area is already commercial and that should be allowed to continue.
Chad Wygal said, “I would testify in a court of law that nothing has happened on that property in the last year,” something disputed by Giulio and others. City attorney Steve Shapiro said he was not sure a gravel pit is the same use as a truck and equipment facility, but noted that the zoning ordinance does not spell that out.
The Wygals complained Giulio was using the property for a garbage dump and toxic waste site, something he disputed.
“I’m not licensed to transport hazardous waste,” he said, and licensing is also required for a solid waste site. Tires at the site that prompted complaints from the Wygals will be hauled out as soon as there are enough to fill a trailer, he said.
Jennie Rafferty, another neighbor to Giulio’s planned site who lives closer than the Wygals, said she has no problems with what Giulio is doing there. She said he has even cleaned it up more than before he owned it.
“I have no doubt they will be good neighbors,” she said, adding that she had one issue which he dealt with as soon as she brought it to his attention. Pasini also said the area previously used by Giulio near the Town Pump is “a much cleaner place now than it was.” She also questioned what the community of Boulder would do for garbage service if Giulio’s operation is zoned out.
Monica Wygal said Boulder is a city of laws, and if the zoning board does not enforce those laws, it will be anarchy.
Chad Wygal said he was not against Giulio, but only against a commercial use going into what is supposed to be a residential area. “If they were building a Hershey factory – and I love chocolate – I still wouldn’t want it,” he told the board.
Another twist in the issue comes from a claim by Jefferson County that the property is subject to county, not city, zoning.
Shapiro disagreed but told the board it might get a dozen different opinions from a dozen different attorneys. He provided the board with copies of a letter from County Attorney Steven Haddon and a reply he had written.
Board member Les Vossler said the gravel pit was there when he came to town in the 1960s, and the town has traditionally grandfathered in existing uses. That might not be the ideal way to proceed, he said, but it is what the community has traditionally done with zoning issues.
Gerold Craft, another board member, said the affected area has always been commercial since he has been in town beginning in the early 1960s. He added, “Somebody’s got to be a fool to build a house there because it’s a flood zone.”
Vossler disputed the Wygal contention that the gravel pit has not been used in a year. “If you say it’s not been used, you just haven’t been watching,” he said. Shapiro suggested a couple of possible compromises, including moving the operation to a different portion of the property or annexing it into the city. “I’m just trying to find a compromise,” he said. “After 38 years of going to court, I don’t want to go to court anymore,” he said.
Pasini, Vossler and Craft, the only three members of the five-member board present, voted to approve Giulio’s use of the property as an ongoing commercial use. “We’ll see you in court. We’ll see you in court, all of you,” said Monica Wygal as she left.
