Pilot Flying J appealed the decision, contesting many of the conditions in March. Citizens for Responsible Development, the group protesting the project, followed suit. Both recently filed court briefs outlining their arguments.
Representatives for Pilot Flying J say that commissioners cannot require them to hire a security guard, install electrification units at all truck parking stalls and require truckers to use them, or put up landscaping that shields the travel center from the interstate.
The business also contests the requirement that they construct the truck stop with cultured stone, brick or decorative masonry consistent with a “Market Place” prototype the company showed commissioners. Pilot’s attorney Tim Burke argues that the county is requiring them to build something that doesn’t exist yet.
Commissioners “ignored the actual submitted site plan and signage drawings and elevations before it for four months and three hearings and required within the resolution a building design that Pilot never formally submitted,” Burke wrote.
Tony Collins, the spokesman for CRD, said Pilot used the prototype drawings as a “bait-and-switch” to get people to think it was a going to be an attractive truck stop. He said it didn’t diminish what he and others believe are serious problems with having a truck stop in their neighborhood.
“I think their intent was to make people feel better about something we all know of as a truck stop,” he said. “I think the idea was for people to say, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look so bad.’ And frankly it didn’t look bad, but all the other stuff still comes with it.”
CRD has maintained that commissioners were not allowed to approve the truck stop because fast food restaurants and overnight stays are forbidden in industrial zoning.
The group of neighbors, sometimes numbering more than 100, have also expressed concerns about crime. They say truck stops can be magnets for prostitution and other unlawful activities as well as contribute to noise and air quality issues and declining property values.
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