 | | | Photo Mina Lucacher | | | | | | Did you think that the big trucks and equipment parked next to the church at 155 Moraga Rd was the Palos Colorado development staging to start grading the site? Not so.
Neighbors across the street complained to the town and the mystery was solved. The culprit is Central Contra Costa Sanitary District and its contractor KJ Woods, parking its trucks there to be used in Lafayette. The agency is now working out its situation with the town.
At a planning commission public hearing at the beginning of the month, Central San came to explain that there is no place for them to store the equipment in Lafayette and that the church at 155 Moraga Rd. has rented them the space until the end of October. The fleet consists of vehicles, a backhoe, flatbed trucks, materials, precast concrete, pipes, fittings and equipment storage, compressors and generators. The equipment is being used to complete the pipeline renovation project in various locations of Lafayette. No work is done on site and no hazardous material is stored there.
The neighbors across the street complained to the town about the unsightly yard, and about the noise that according to them starts before 7 a.m. Central San's contractor replied that they have to start moving their equipment early to be on their Lafayette site on time and meet their schedule, but the representative challenged the fact that movement and noise ever occurs before 7 a.m.
Planning commissioner Ferenc Kovac asked the contractor if no site could be found in Lafayette, since it did not make a lot of sense to him that someone would drive the narrow winding road with heavy equipment at commute time, rather than parking closer to the construction site. He added that he would like to see more sensitivity to the needs of the neighbors on the part of the contractor.
The planning commissioners agreed to grant a use permit for the construction staging area but asked that no noise be heard before 8 a.m. They also required more visual screening along Moraga Road. The contractor added that it hopes to complete the work by the end of
August.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA