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Home My WebLink About20011811.tiff • Weld County Planning Dept. 'Ji1 1 o 2001 RECEIVED June 1 I, 2001 Chris Gathman, Planner Weld County Department of Planning Services 1555 North 17th Avenue Greeley, CO 80631 Re: Mark and Phyllis VanThuyne Special Use Permit for Storage and Maintenance of boring Equipment for'underground utilities Dear Planning Department: The Markham family owns and operates a 240 acre farm and cattle feeding operation immediately south of the VanThuynes' property for which a Special Use Permit - is proposed We object to the granting of the Special Use Permit for several reasons. • 1. The rural agriculture environment is not the place for this Special Use Permit. 2. Early morning start up and warm up of equipment, vehicles and trucks creates a noise as well as exhaust fumes. When conditions are right the exhaust fumes flow into our yards, buildings and cattle corrals. This is very offensive to both people and animals. 3. The gravel county roads are not designed and constructed for such heavy use and don't need the extra traffic of the utilities business. 4. The water from washing of equipment leaves VanThuynes' property goes south, then goes 14 mile east on the north side of Weld County Road 46, then goes south. The contaminants in the wash water from trucks and equipment being washed is a concern. It is definitely a pollutant to farm crops. 5. The number of vehicles and the size of the business needs to be addressed. The VanThuyne size of operation as well as the amount of equipment and vehicles has grown in the past year of operation. This expansion is of concern. If the Special Use Permit is granted the permit should be specifically restricted for use by the VanThuynes, and should not be EXHIBIT • • 2001-1811 transferable to any new owner of I he land or with any new owners of this or any other related businesses. 6. The view of equipment, pickups, trailers, employee vehicles and semi- tractors are not the right setting for the rural neighbors and the farming environment. For all these reasons the Special Use Permit should be denied. Enclosed is a copy of a letter Mark VanThuyne wrote to Weld County Planning stating his opinion of being a rural thrmer and the problem of land development and the changing of rural property to other uses. It seems as if maybe he farmed with a false pretense and now greedily wants to get a Special Use Permit in an agriculture zoned area not caring about what happens to the surrounding farms, only the lining of his own pockets. Thank you for your consideration of this objection. Very truly yours, ell t Kenneth Markham 2464 Weld County Road 46 Berthoud, CO 80513 (970) 532-3863 n FROM : *IRK VANTHUYNE FAX NO. : 970 532 7155 /"N Jun. 18 2001 07:28RM P2 June 18, 2001 Chris Gathman, Planner Weld County Department of Planning Services 1555 N. 17th Ave. Greeley, CO 80631 RE: USR 1336/Mark&Phyllis Van Thuyne Dear Mr. Gathman, This is to address some of the things listed in the materials sent to us regarding our special use permit application, and other issues. In regard to what equipment we have now and plan to have in the future. The potential for moderate growth is always there, but we do not foresee any more equipment being purchased at this time. If in the future we see the need to expand, we will contact your office for the procedure on getting approval. Our business uses no hazardous chemicals during operation. The only chemicals that we would have around would be a bottle of Roundup used for weed control on our site when needed. Hours of operation is another concern of the department. At the time of application we assumed 6:30 a.m.to 6:00 p.m.would be sufficient. For most of our equipment(the two pothole trucks and r the boring machine)those hours are adequate. But we have encountered changes that we have no control over with our two vacuum tankers that affects our hours of operation. The two tanks work primarily in Denver. Because of certain on and off ramps along with traffic control during rush hours, CDOT has required some work to be done at night to alleviate those traffic problems. The trucks leave our yard approximately 8:30 p.m. and usually return after 6:00 a.m. the next morning. This night shift work lasts only a few weeks at a time then the trucks go back to day shift work. The next project coming up is all day work. We don't foresee much night shift work in the future, but it is a possibility every once in a while for short periods of time. Our drivers have been instructed that when they retum in the morning to pull into the yard and park the truck in a forward movement so not to engage the backup warning signal. Regarding the dust issue: Our business creates no dust on site. All the maintenance is done in the shop. When we leave the yard to go to a job site, we do have to go on the county roads; there is no getting around that. But not all of our equipment leaves the yard on a daily basis. On the average, only three or four vehicles drive out of the yard a day. They leave once and return once. We have a project coming up this next week and will last most of the summer where one truck will leave the yard and be gone for four days at a time before returning. All of our employees have been instructed to drive the county roads at a reasonably slow speed for safety reasons while driving our company trucks and also for controlling dust. Nine times out of ten when our trucks leave the yard they tum east and go to 1-25. Our tankers never have gone to a job going west out of our.yard. So there is little dust created to the west of our driveway. We have very experienced drivers as employees. They know how t0 take care of equipment and they respect the rights of others. The Department of Health was given a letter regarding the washing of our equipment and the concern of us contaminating the irrigation water. We do not in any way bring contaminants back to our site from off-site jobs. We haul only water and mud created by the large underground fiber- optic boring machines used in the Denver area. It Is not dumped on our site and we do not wash /^ out the inside of our tanks on our site. CDOT does not require us in any way to be licensed for carrying hazardous materials. The only washing that takes place on our site is similar to a car EXHIBIT 1 22 FROM :i,rtflRK UANTHUYNE FAX NO. : 970 532 7155 Jun. 18 2001 07:29AM P3 wash. We have a high-pressure washer that we wash off the road dirt. Mark always expects the equipment to be clean and respectable. He was that way when we farmed. The tractors and other farm equipment were washed all the time. He feels that the way your equipment looks reflects how you run your business, no matter what business you are in. We don't wash all the equipment every day. Probably on the average only the two vacuum tankers and one other gets cleaned on a daily basis. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to wash the entire truck. I took photos to document the small amount of runoff water created. I will bring them to the hearing on Tuesday. After washing the two tankers(one right after the other), the water had run less than ten-foot off the concrete pad,then went no further. The drainage pipeline that would take the runoff water to the bar ditch is approximately 50 foot from the concrete pad. As you can see there is no way the water from us washing our trucks would ever be a factor. It will never reach the pipeline. So how can it be contaminating the neighbor's crops. This property is where our home is and where our two grandchildren play. If we had any worries about chemical pollution being brought back to our site, we would not wash our vehicles at home or even be in this business. I am also bringing photos of how this property looked when we bought it in 1992, and how it looks today, just to show how hard we have worked to make our home a respectable place to live and work. We did all the dean-up work and landscaping ourselves,though it took a few years to get it looking like it does today. We take pride in our yard and will work just as hard in the future to do our best to meet the guidelines of the Planning Department so we can stay living here. Our site will always be well maintained as well as our equipment. We really feel our new business is not a hazard to the local farming community. Mark and I both grew up on farms here in the Berthoud area and have farmed together for 30 years. It was a hard decision to quit farming and start a new business, but we leased almost all of the 2500 acres that we farmed. With housing development and highway expansions on the west side of Berthoud, we were losing acres to the point of not having enough left to make a living for our family partnership, along with horribly poor crop prices, we admitted to ourselves that fanning was not going to be a viable occupation for our family any longer. Our new business compared to our farming operation creates far less noise, less dust, less traffic in and out of our yard. For example: During beet harvest we would have eight semis running 16 hours a day back and forth on the roads. During irrigation season,we and our employees would drive in and out of our yard at least 25 to 30 times a day to change water. We had 6 large tractors and all the equipment to cover 2500 acres going in and out of the yard on a daily basis. All of the above is cut dramatically with our new business. I would think the neighbors would be grateful. Thank you, Respectfully, bhylr Van Thuyne 06/19/2001 05: 48 97053590?"' PAGE 02/03 ft 174": G e--0g(S oi-77/714 7/v. c -- 1336 FREDERICK AND DIANE WEIS :C (,S C , "Mad C'c4O'vdr s(15-y:: June 17,2001 Weld County Colorado Department of Planning Services 1555 North 17th Avenue Greeley,Colorado 80631 To Whom Tt May Concern: We are strongly opposed to granting the zoning variance Case No.USR-1336 proposed by Mark and Phyllis Van Thuyne. The area in question is 100 percent agriculture with few country residents nestled in between the larger farms. I have spoken with numerous farmers and residents in the area,and they all were strongly opposed. to this variance. Our reasons are as follows: 1)The area has been agricultural for many years. It contains sonic of the few remaining larger tracts of farm ground remaining west of Interstate 25. It is excellent farmland. 2)When the door is opened to industrial development,more will follow and soon the country lifestyle will disappear. 3)The traffic,dust,noise and pollution,which will accompany this operation, are not acceptable and would greatly diminish our peaceful rural lifestyle. 4)There are numerous nearby areas available for the Van Thuynes' industrial business that are properly zoned and would allow for minimal negative impact on farmers and residents. It must be noted that Mark Van Thuyne,one of the two applicants for this particular variance,when farming in 1993,was adamantly opposed to any development even miles away from his property. (Please see the attached letter dated December 19, 1.993_) A time may come when this agricultural area is ripe for development. At that time,all interested parties should pool their thoughts and ideas,and engage in a comprehensive planning process to create solutions acceptable to everyone. Sincerely, Frederick Weis EXHIBIT I 43 06/19/2001 05: 48 970535909". PAGE 03/03 y 1 ^,.. l iSin frxoti Cneis AT./ ?! D E C E tI V E A -. uS/C -/33 G DEC 2 0. 1993 Weld Cmmtyplanning -- U 'Y December 19, 1993 IITo whom it is that makes the decision as to what happens to our agricultural community: IIThe farm on County Road 46 just east of Interstate :i5, now owned by the La.reson ' s, and being proposed -For a housing subdivision was a guod viable productive farm in the past. I know because I am a neighboring farmer 11 and for many years have known its history. I don 't believe the gravel county road needs the extra traffic of housing and development. I also don 't think the neighboring farms need the irrigation • problems that go with development projects. I know first hand because I deal with it in trying to farm land that we have farmed for years near the Berthoud area. I would reeally' hope that you would consider protecting some of our prime agricultural areas, and not let them bra swallowed up by unsightly housing developments. - ,`,- I truly believe the L_arson ' s bouyht this farm with a false pretense to farm it and now greedily want to develop it , not caring about what happens to the surrounding farms, only the lining of their own pocket„ lir,.*:1... Sincerely , It--i . - -- - efee • .,..,,��•r �:.. /J . ��I�'yK./J� �/ (f•v(�� 1�/rGyJ 4'x ,. ' Marl: VanThuyne Agriculturist and Farmer . S.,:.Yom. . • • • e. .:,: • • hair 000158 • -- _, . . 6.I r r Mr i _, r N g t f i !1Stci 7 trt J Y y1 t • is -se �. T % .__ - I .' . '' 4."7'Rp A 4 rc e b % x.trot". r p .,lik a j _ amillir- ,- I1: it t$I0- -�►�__ R ' " '' 4:: s / ` + 4 ( ... 3'6,. ' . ...._ .... ,..,... . ;2'1 _ ' .r, 'r` e'er 3✓ e 14 r rti a 'i�ra. EY, / r •t :Ca ., 'Y , .17:---...--4-" . etld+. 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