October 24, 2009
Proposed redemption center gets city hearing
Gresham accepting input for two weeks
Oregon Beverage Recycling Center officials made their case for why a proposed redemption center serves a retail rather than community service function to at a hearing Thursday, Oct. 22, at Gresham City Council Chambers.
At stake is whether the OBRC, which is considering around 90 centralized container redemption centers throughout the state, will be able to apply for and open its facilities as a for-profit retail operation. The alternative is the more complex –and potentially more cost-intensive – process associated with community service-based facilities.
If it can find a suitable location, the organization intends to establish the state’s first centralized container-redemption center in Gresham. So far, the organization hasn’t filed for an official permit, pending the outcome of the designation process.
OBRC attorney Damien Hall presented the group’s case that the proposed center – which would supplant recycling collections at four city supermarkets with a single facility – would facilitate basic retail transactions as customers exchange empty containers for deposit money.
City planning staff members maintain the proposed center fits clearly within the city code’s type III “Community Service Use” definition of a “recycling facility,” which includes drop-box transfer stations, collection sites and recovery facilities.
Gresham Hearings Officer Joe Turner listened to testimony from OBRC and city officials for about 45 minutes and asked numerous questions of both parties. He said he will issue a final decision on the matter by Friday, Nov. 27, or sooner, to allow for additional evidence and public input through Nov. 5.
The issue is rooted in the unprecedented nature of a redemption center, which represents a change in Oregon’s bottle-bill guidelines that required individual supermarkets to collect containers on site.
Because the city code doesn’t require that actual processing take place at a collection center, Turner reasoned, the redemption center seems to fit the city’s definition.
“I don’t see how this doesn’t fall into the category as a collection facility,” he said. “The primary purpose is to collect (containers) and send them on.”
Hall disputed the city’s contention that the bottle bill intended to encourage recycling as opposed to simply reduce litter.
“The bottle bill requires that containers have a refund value,” he said. “Nowhere in the bill does it mention recycling.
“The consumer goes to the store to purchase a beverage with a returnable value,” he said. The OBRC “believes this is a completion of a retail transaction, and should be categorized by Gresham (city code) as such … That the transaction is (completed) later at other location makes it no less a retail transaction.”
Carol Rulla, president of the Kelly Creek Neighborhood Association and one of only a few citizens who attended the hearing, said the center strikes her as more of a community service than a place of retail business.
“I’d argue that if there’s a value to the public, then that’s community service,” she said. “Returning my nickel is different than other retail transactions. I don’t think it’s a retail transaction. … The value to public makes it community service versus a retail function.”
http://www.theoutlookonline.com/news/story.php?story_id=125634832036015500
