In a settlement reached with the Licking County prosecutor’s office on behalf of the county planning commission, The Shelly Company dropped its appeal of a series of decisions that denied it a permit to build and operate concrete- and asphalt-mixing facilities near Alexandria.
The settlement that led to the dismissal was reached in mid-May, but a one-sentence entry making it official was not filed by Ohio’s Fifth District Court of Appeals until May 28.
Aaron Underhill, an attorney for The Shelly Company, said the company agreed to dismiss the appeal if Licking County officials would agree to “a letter of map revision (LOMR) request to update flood mapping for the property and also provided its input to FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) on that request. The county did take those steps and so the appeal was dismissed.
“Once approved by FEMA,” Underhill wrote in an email, FEMA “will provide an official updated mapping of (the) floodplain on the site to reflect current conditions.”
And then, wrote Underhill, of the New Albany law firm of Underhill & Hodge, the company can consider next steps for the property just east of Rt. 37 at 1434 Tharp Road, on the southeast side of Alexandria, that The Shelly Company leases from James Geiger of Alexandria.
“This map will then be used to determine locations on the property where any future improvements and activities would be permitted as it relates to flood regulations,” Underhill wrote. “Beyond this information, at this time there is no additional information about when or if those improvements will occur.”
Darcy T. Cook, Chief Assistant for the Civil Division of the Licking County Prosecutor’s Office, wrote in an email that FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program, “which was created to help individuals and businesses cover the costs of flood insurance and to reduce the flood risk overall. To be eligible for this program, Licking County must adopt and enforce particular regulations and utilize the published, current effective Flood Insurance Rate Map and Flood Insurance Study for floodplain management and insurance purposes.”
The letter of map revision application has been submitted to FEMA, Cook wrote, adding that if FEMA approves a revision, FEMA will also publish and provide the new effective Flood Insurance Rate Map and Flood Insurance Study associated with the revision. “At that point, the developers will still need to go through the Licking County Planning Commission to determine compliance with applicable regulations. If (a map revision) is not approved, or requires modification and/or revision, new/further reviews and approvals will be required,” she wrote.
Elaine Robertson, a founder of the grassroots Clean Air and Water for Alexandria and St. Albans Township, said it’s not a surprise that The Shelly Company is continuing its efforts to operate at the Alexandria site and that company officials believe that the land is appropriate for that use.
“That was the goal when they went before the Licking County Planning Commission,” she said. “They brought their own experts to dispute the existing floodplain maps.”
The floodplain is a key issue in the dispute because the company’s proposed site for asphalt- and concrete-mixing facilities is near the banks of Raccoon Creek, and construction is not permitted in the floodplain.
Experts hired by The Shelly Company have argued that the specific locations where they would build and operate construction-materials facilities are not in the floodplain. And Underhill argued during the November appeal hearing held by the planning commission that current floodplain regulations didn’t apply to the Geiger property because it has been used as a gravel-mining site since the 1950s, and therefore it is grandfathered, and current regulations don’t apply.
Raccoon Creek flows through Alexandria, St. Albans Township and Granville Township and helps recharge the well field from which the Village of Granville draws drinking water for Granville and Alexandria residents. Because asphalt is made with petroleum products, local officials have raised concerns about possible water pollution from runoff or spills at the site.
Robertson said that if the company wins the floodplain dispute, it will still have to go through the planning and zoning process for permits to build and operate the plants.
“We’d still want to be involved in the process,” she said. “Ultimately, Alexandria will grow, and we have plans about how that should happen. And we don’t want asphalt and concrete plants all over the place.”
Efforts by Shelly Materials to operate asphalt- and concrete-mixing machinery on the Geiger property go back more than two years to early 2023, when the company started working with local authorities in St. Albans Township, where Alexandria is located, to seek approval for the operations. That never happened.
The proposal was rejected at the local and county levels over the course of a year and a half.
The company in December 2023 appealed a rejection by the Licking County Planning Commission to the Licking County Common Pleas Court, where Judge Thomas M. Marcelain filed a decision on Aug. 19, 2024, that affirmed the planning commission’s ruling on Nov. 20, 2023, to reject an appeal of its June 5, 2023, decision to deny a permit to Shelly Materials and Scioto Materials, affiliates of The Shelly Company.
| Read more: Shelly Materials loses another appeal in its quest to build asphalt and concrete plants in Alexandria
Residents and officials of Alexandria, Granville, Granville Township and St. Albans Township have been fighting the asphalt and concrete plants since March 2023 when The Reporting Project first reported the Shelly proposal, raising concerns about potential air and water pollution.
The Shelly proposal was followed by proposals for two more plants – another asphalt plant on the northwest side of Alexandria and another concrete plant on the southeast side, for a possible five such plants flanking the village of 500 residents. To date, two proposals were withdrawn and the others have been rejected by local officials.
| Read more: The Shelly Company dealt another blow in its quest to operate concrete- and asphalt-mixing plants at Alexandria
One concrete-mixing plant existed on the northwest side of the village before the Shelly proposal emerged in 2023, and it continues to operate.
Opponents of the plants were upset and somewhat deflated after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in July 2024 approved an air permit for the operation of an asphalt plant. But the EPA permit is of no use to Shelly Materials unless or until it has a permit to build a plant.
Alan Miller writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.