HARLINGEN — A proposed recycling center would not process material such as scrap metal at a site along Commerce Street.
City commissioners today are expected to consider Nicole Ortiz’s request for a specific use permit to open the center at1318 N. Commerce St.
The city’s Planning and Zoning commission approved the request on conditions including an 8-foot fence which would surround the 3.4-acre site located in an area zoned for light-industrial use.
Officials also required the center to limit its amount of stacked material to 8-foot-high piles.
Ortiz plans to purchase material such as scrap metal at the site, where it would be loaded for transportation, according to her application.
The raw material would be transported to a site in Donna, where it would be processed, Rodrigo Davila, director of the city’s planning department, said yesterday.
“They said it was going to be just a staging area,” Davila said. “They are not going to be recycling any product there. They’re not going to do any processing there.”
The center would transport raw material the day after its purchase, according to the application.
Davila said the Planning and Zoning Commission requested Ortiz build an 8-foot-tall solid fence around the site.
“That’s the concern,” Davila said. “They don’t want them to pile up high.”
The city would also require the center maintain a landscaped buffer of densely-planted shrubs along the fence’s perimeter.
The proposed location used to be the site of a recycling center, Davila said.
