Allan Appel file photo
Then-Lt. Gov. candidate Susan Bysiewicz with American GreenFuels staff at a campaign stop in 2018.
The industrial New Haven Terminal, with American GreenLeaf's rented property outlined in green in the bottom right.
An Annex plant that turns vegetable oil into biodiesel fuel won permission to expand its industrial waterfront operations — with a plea from City Plan Commissioners to do its best to swap out asphalt with concrete when possible to minimize its impact on a warming planet.
That was the outcome of Wednesday night’s latest regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission. The virtual meeting took place online via Zoom.
The local land-use commissioners voted unanimously in support of a site plan application by American GreenFuels LLC to construct a 1,400 square-foot addition to an existing 8,400 square-foot commercial building at 30 Waterfront St.
American GreenFuels is a Swiss-owned “biodiesel production” company that has been operating out of the city’s harbor-adjacent New Haven Terminal since 2013. The company takes “feedstocks,” plant-based oils and animal fats and turns them into tens of millions of gallons of renewable fuel every year. (Click here and here to read previous Independent articles about their Waterfront Street business.)
On Wednesday, Guilford-based engineer Stephen Benben explained that the company is looking to build a 1,400 square-foot addition to its existing Annex plant to expand their operations. “It will just house equipment that will allow them to further refine the finished product,” he said.
American GreenFuels’ site plan application goes into further detail on the current layout and operations of the business, which leases 2.19 acres on a 25.3‑acre industrial lot owned by the New Haven Terminal:
The overall site currently consists of a large tank farm occupied by bulk aboveground storage tanks (ASTs), several office, boiler, and warehouse buildings, and two main docks for loading or offloading of liquid or solid bulk materials. AGF’s leased area consists of the operations building/offices, mobile trailer used for office space, a concrete tank farm with multiple aboveground storage tanks and process vessels, storage areas, and various truck (off)loading areas (see Appendix D).
AGF’s current operations include the use of raw materials, including used vegetable oil, received by truck, which are transferred to aboveground storage tanks located within the existing tank farm. Raw materials are pumped from the tank farm into process vessels in the operations building via product piping between the tank farms and the operations building. Biodiesel is produced by chemically reacting a vegetable oil with an alcohol (methanol). The finished biodiesel is transferred from the process operations and stored in ASTs in the non-flammable tank farm and in leased bulk storage tank(s) located off-site at New Haven Terminal’s tank farm.
Benben said that the planned development “won’t be impacting any of the coastal resources,” won’t increase the amount of impervious (i.e., paved) area on the site, and won’t increase the amount of stormwater runoff.
“It’s considered a developed waterfront,” Benben said, referencing a Google Maps image of the industrial waterfront showing it as already consumed by storage tanks and buildings and pavement.
Wednesday night's City Plan Commission meeting.
The commissioners’ questions and concerns Wednesday night focused primarily on American GreenFuels’ request that they not have to comply with Sec. 60.2 of the city zoning code, which deals with the “reflective heat impact from hardscape or paved surfaces.”
Namely, Sec. 60.2 ( c ) (1) states that site plan applicants “shall provide at least 50 percent of all on site non-roof hardscape or paved areas will be either (1) shaded (based on a five year grow out period for all planned and existing vegetation) or (2) be constructed using a material with a Solar Reflective Index of at least 29 and calculated consistent with ASTM E 408 or ASTM C 1371 and ASTM E 903, ASTM E 1918 or ASTM C 1549.”
The purpose of that part of the city zoning code is to reduce the amount of planet-warming heat that any given developed property traps.
Benben said that the American GreenFuels’ site, thanks to its use of white paint atop storage tanks and its use of concrete when possible instead of asphalt, is “right around 40 percent” shaded or reflective, per the city zoning standards. He asked for a waiver from the commission from having to meet that 50 percent standard defined in city law.
Is there any way to incorporate even more concrete and less asphalt during this development project? Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand asked.
Even as he asked, he acknowledged that it’s a “tough sell” to say to the property owner to “pull up perfectly good asphalt to pour concrete slabs” just because of this part of the zoning code, and not because of work needed to build the addition to the plant.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn said that, while the city’s “preference is through shading and trees” to achieve the shade and heat reflectivity standards, “that’s really not something we would see here” in such a developed area. “Forty percent is fairly good for an industrial site in the port.”
Commission Vice-Chair Ed Mattison said that the commission can’t mandate that the property owner tear up asphalt and replace it with concrete — either now, or in the future.
He and his fellow commissioners agreed the best they could do was ask the property owner that, “if they make future changes on this piece of land, that to the extent practical, replace dark paving with lighter.”
“If we are serious about climate change, we really have to push the envelope a little bit,” Mattison said.
But for now, the commissioners granted the waiver from the 50-percent reflective heat standard, and unanimously approved the site plan application.