JANESVILLE
A local cheese hauler is a notch closer to having his cheddar and trucking it, too, as long as the 糖心Vlog传媒 City Council likes a rezoning plan for a trucking cross-dock project it is set to review later this month.
Bob Whalen, who runs cheese and dry goods hauler ForZack Trucking and ForZack Logistics in 糖心Vlog传媒, got good news Monday when the 糖心Vlog传媒 Plan Commission unanimously approved a conditional-use permit and gave a thumbs-up to a rezoning request off Kettering and Whitney streets for a trucking cross-dock.
The approval and the recommendation to the council to allow a zoning change for the project came readily Monday despite concerns over the specter of traffic congestion by a handful of residents who live in the Pheasant Run subdivision just north of the proposed trucking outpost.
Whalen, who operates his independent trucking outfit on the city鈥檚 south side, said his company is growing and that he aims initially to build a small-scale cross-dock for storage and transfer of food goods ForZack trucks in and out at a vacant parcel at the south end of Fulton Street off Milton Avenue.
It would amount at first to about 30 trucks coming and going per week out of four entryways to the parcel, Whalen estimated.
But that would change later if Whalen pursues a second phase of expansion in which he plans to build a 100,000-square-foot cold storage terminal to store cheese and other food items.
Whalen said traffic in and out of the site would jump to about 60 or 80 trucks a week.
Whalen鈥檚 plan was met with concern by residents Gene Mueller and Dennis Riley, both residents of Pheasant Run who spoke during Monday鈥檚 commission meeting.
They said ever since the state Department of Transportation reconfigured the Highway 26-Interstate 90/39 interchange to a diverging diamond interchange, traffic has bottled up just north at Milton Avenue鈥檚 intersection with Kettering Street.
Kettering is the cross street Whalen鈥檚 truckers would use to get on and off of Highway 26, and both Pheasant Run residents said they worry that added truck traffic could further tie up a busy intersection that is already troubled.
Mueller said he thinks the lights are timed poorly now that the new interchange is completed. He said the lights seem timed more to favor the flow of thousands of vehicles worth of north-south traffic going through the crossover.
That has led to growing bottlenecks Mueller said he fears could get worse if a trucking outfit added traffic in and out of Kettering, which is the only inlet to reach the 2-acre site where Whalen wants to build.
Plan commission member Douglas Marklein noted that prior to the trucking proposal, the last prospect for the same parcel was a proposed hotel鈥攁 plan that ultimately fell apart. Marklein said a hotel project would bring far more traffic coming and going from Kettering than small-scale trucking.
The council must approve a zoning change of the parcel in question from business to light manufacturing. The zoning change would revert the property to how it was zoned for years before a change that was made to spur the failed hotel plan.
The zoning proposal will reach the city council March 28. Whalen sought to extend an olive branch to residents of Pheasant Run, saying he knows semitrailer trucks can be some of the least-revered vehicles on the roadway.
鈥淚 love being in this town and I鈥檇 like to stay here,鈥 Whalen said, telling the neighbors 鈥淚 will be mindful of your concerns,鈥 Whalen said. 鈥淚f I鈥檓 the owner of the company, and I can make the changes as needed, hopefully, I鈥檒l have a permanent place to call home.鈥
Plan Commission member Barry Badertscher voted with the rest of the commission to support rezoning the land and issuing a conditional-use permit, saying he couldn鈥檛 see putting a local land sale and local business expansion on ice when its use fits with surrounding industrial property.
Still, he acknowledged the troubles at the intersection, saying the city was complacent years ago when the state drew up and then later executed plans for the I-90/39 expansion and interchange rebuilds on the northeast side.
鈥淚t now takes me three stoplights to go through. It takes me 10 minutes to go through what used to take me 30 seconds. And that鈥檚 not a unique situation. That鈥檚 what these (northeast side resident) people are dealing with every day,鈥 Badertscher said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing we can do. Unfortunately, the concrete is laid. The design is done. I think we were asleep at the wheel.鈥
A city analysis showed traffic would not be affected by the relatively low volume of trucks, but the development would require some intersections in the business park to be marked with signs intended to prevent truck traffic from turning onto them.
Duane Cherek, the city鈥檚 planning director, said he learned the DOT aims to crosscheck the timing of lights at and near the diverging diamond interchange on Highway 26 later this year when crews wrap up a rebuild of Highway 14.