SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : City Seeks Public Hearing on Composting Plant’s Permit

City officials want the county to consider revoking a permit for a composting plant that has been blamed for bad odors.

The City Council last week voted to urge the county’s Planning Commission to hold a public hearing on the permit and argued that its 1991 approval was based on inaccurate information.

The problem, officials say, is that La Pata Greenwaste, just outside the city, sits about 1,500 feet from the nearest homes and not 1 1/2 miles as the county was told in 1991 when it was granting approval.

Dick Bobertz, the city’s planning manager, said that the county Planning Commission may have decided differently if it had known that future homes would be less than a mile away. The homes were not built at the time, he said.

In September, residents who had moved into the upscale houses began to notice an odor and discovered the composting plant along La Pata Avenue on the other side of a hill.

Margie Wagener, who is with the county’s land-use planning enforcement division, said there is no minimum distance requirement between houses and composting plants. Wagener added that La Pata Greenwaste was the first such operation in the county to seek a permit.

In December, the parent company of the plant, Browning-Ferris Industries, scaled back operations. The month before, the company was cited by the county for operating violations.

At its peak this summer, the business took in an average of 200 tons of green waste per day, mulching it, then putting it in huge windrows to make compost.

The plant began operations in March on a 10-acre parcel. Browning-Ferris bought the business in May and leases the land from a partnership under the Rancho Santa Margarita Co., according to city officials.

Ken Wishnick, divisional vice president of Browning-Ferris, said the company bought the business before the permit was granted. Officials at the Rancho Santa Margarita Co. could not be reached for comment.