Attorneys for Rayonier Advanced Materials (RYAM) claim the company is being denied "due process" in its bid to build a $50 million bioethanol production plant and that an outside opinion obtained by Fernandina Beach that the facility violates the Land Development Code is not factual and "non-binding."
In a 117-page filing by Jacksonville law firm Lewis, Longman and Walker dated Dec. 18, a team of three attorneys specializing in governmental law, land use law and environmental and natural resources law, said RYAM's proposed bioethanol plant meets all the standards of the city's Land Development Code (LDC).
RYAM is seeking to build and operate a bioethanol plant that would produce 7.5 million gallons of alternative fuel yearly. The bioethanol would be produced and stored at RYAM's Gum Street complex and eventually trucked to other locations for sale.
Opponents of the project cite provisions of the LDC that prohibit "chemical manufacturing" in the city.
Last May, the city obtained a legal opinion by land use legal experts with the law firm of Weiss Serota that stated the RYAM bioethanol plant would constitute "chemical manufacturing" and thus prohibited by the LDC.
RYAM took its first step in seeking approval to begin construction of the facility in a pre-meeting with city officials earlier this month in preparation for a review of those plans by the city's Technical Review Committee (TRC).
RYAM will be seeking building permits from the city required for construction. The decision on issuing those building permits rests with newly hired City Manager Sarah Campbell, now in her first month on the job.
Exactly how Campbell will determine whether or not RYAM is granted or denied a building permit is not clear.
The foundation of RYAM's case rests with the argument that bioethanol production is a "fermentation" process and not "chemical manufacturing" and thus is permitted by the LDC.
Second, RYAM's attorneys claim the city's outside legal opinion is "flawed and non-binding" and violated RYAM's rights to "due process" with the city.
The attorneys also argue that City Manager Campbell in making the decision regarding approval or denial of building permits is limited to the interpretations and implementation of city standards in conjunction only with city staff.
"Since the LDC expressly limited the potential recipients of delegated authority from the City Manager to City Staff, the City Manager has no authority to delegate interpretive authority to outside counsel like Weiss Serota. Notably, neither does the LDC grant the City Attorney any power to delegate interpretive power to an outside law firm," the document states.
RYAM attorneys also cited case law that the company should have the ability the ability to be "heard in the form of a quasi-judicial hearing, where the competency of evidence can be established and the grounds for decision-making can be adequately disclosed," the filing said. "The LDC provisions governing the site plan approval process, which is not well delineated in process by the LDC and does not appear to allow for a quasi-judicial hearing, already fall short of the typical regulatory standard in this regard."
The RYAM document also attacks the validity of the Weiss Serota opinion.
"In reality, it (Weiss Serota) simply determined that because ethanol is a chemical in the generic sense, the fact that it will be the resulting product of the Project must constitute chemical manufacturing and refining. This overly simplistic approach to the interpretive inquiry ignores the context provided by other language in the Comprehensive Plan and LDC, as a result, the Weiss Serota Memo is deficient, and its conclusion should not be considered persuasive by the city," attorneys stated.
The next meeting of the TRC is scheduled of January 23 and it is not clear if RYAM's proposal will be on that agenda.
The 117-page document is available to download below:
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