In a 3-2 split vote, Columbus Board of Zoning Appeals approved a proposal to place a temporary asphalt production facility on an 8.22 acre site in Woodside Southwest Industrial Park.
The facility, which will have two 80-foot storage silos and 24-foot tall stockpiles of raw materials, will be used to supply asphalt for a multi-year $143 million reconstruction project for Interstate 65 between U.S. 50 in Seymour and State Road 46 in Columbus.
Pintail Investments LLC, represented by managing partner Charles Corbin, was given permission to exceed a local 60-day time limit for temporary operations, allowing asphalt to be produced for up to eight months annually over a three-year period at the site Pintail owns in the Woodside Southwest Industrial Park.
Conditions were attached to the approval that includes paving of access roads, maintaining safe distances between entryways, installing aesthetic berms and erecting signage stating the asphalt plant will only be temporary.
But if those conditions are followed, Pintail’s request was recommended for approval by planning department staff, assistant city-county planner Melissa Begley said.
The asphalt project has an estimated start date of Aug. 1 and would continue through Sept. 30, 2020, corresponding to the anticipated timeline from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Republic.