TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Residents from one Leon County neighborhood showed up to Wednesday's city commission meeting to fight a controversial plan to rezone a nearby sand pit.
The Woodhaven subdivision borders more than 70 acres of land off Capital Circle SW that's used for sand mining.
The city commission voted 4 to 1 to rezone and change the land use of a site used to crush rocks just yards away from where neighbors live.
Several of them addressed the city commission, pleading to put a stop to the plans. The commission made no further comment, with Mayor Andrew Gillum being the only one against the proposal. Residents were visibly disappointed with the vote.
"You can't do this. This is the end of Lake Munson. It's the end of our neighborhood," said resident Sean Egan. "When you see what a rock-crushing and sand-pit operation will do to your neighborhood, it's just amazing."
"Could you imagine living 60 feet away from dump trucks and tractors all day long?" asked resident Jaime Moss. "The people in that neighborhood don't go to work every day. They're elderly, they live on fixed incomes, and they won't be able to survive over there no more. It's going to be that noisy, that loud, that dusty, that polluted."
"It's just amazing that no one paid any attention and just let it go through," Egan said.
Despite a vote by the Planning Commission in February to deny the proposal, the city commission has the final say. Residents are now considering legal help to see if there's anything else that can be done
The site was rezoned from "Single Family Detached Residential" and "Residential Preservation-1" to "Light Industrial."
Residents hope to get the Environmental Protection Agency involved as well.
