CAMARILLO : Firms Oppose Plans for Recycling Center

A recycling company’s plan to build a 9,000-square-foot facility on Flynn Road is meeting opposition from neighboring high-tech companies who say it would be incompatible with their upscale offices.

The Camarillo Planning Commission will consider the issue tonight at a public hearing.

Camarillo Recycling proposes to construct a warehouse on a vacant one-acre lot at Flynn Road and Vista Mercado, where newspaper, scrap metal and other materials would be purchased and sorted.

The facility would be more centrally located and one-third larger than the company’s present Calle San Pablo site across the Ventura Freeway to the south, which the company has occupied for almost a decade, manager Oren Zarin said.

But neighbors have circulated a petition opposing the center, and six companies have written letters saying the recycling center will cause odors, traffic and noise inappropriate for the area’s office and light-industrial uses.

View Tech Inc., a maker of business video-conferencing systems, has threatened to leave Camarillo should the recycling center move next to its corporate headquarters.

“We contribute approximately $1.3 million in tax revenue to the city of Camarillo,” human resources administrator Dianna Branche wrote in a letter to the city. “We feel that if the Camarillo Recycling plant is relocated next door to View Tech, it will cause a loss of revenue to us which would force us to relocate our business outside the Camarillo area.”

The opponents are misinformed, Zarin said.

“At our current location, the neighbors have never complained about noise and odor, and we make it a priority to keep the place clean and organized,” he said. “The traffic that they mentioned is relatively minimal compared to the area [and] the capacity of Flynn Road.”

The Planning Commission will consider the project at its 7:30 meeting tonight at City Hall, 601 Carmen Drive.