TOWN OF LAWRENCE, WI (WTAQ) – Residents in the Town of Lawrence are preparing to challenge local leaders about the possible construction of a new Georgia-Pacific warehouse in their neighborhood.
Chris Frigo lives right around the corner from the proposed site…and Hemlock Creek Elementary School. He isn’t particularly thrilled about the idea of having an estimated 75 trucks rolling in and out of the area every day.
“I’m not opposed to Georgia Pacific coming to the town of Lawrence, per se – but the location that they’ve chosen and the layout of the facility frankly as dangerous to our community,” Frigo tells WTAQ News, “They’re going to come right by our neighborhood, where we have over 150 homes, lots for young drivers, kids biking. It’s just not a good fit for the area…The best spot for it would be in an industrial park, where they’re set up for that kind of traffic and there is little residential activity.”
Frigo admits he isn’t sure what’s available in the town’s industrial park, but says there are other open areas that he believes would be a better fit.
“There’s a spot right off of Freedom Road behind the Kwik Trip, which would put the trucks even closer to the highway access and not bother so many residents,” Frigo says.
Residents like Frigo took part in a conversation with Georgia-Pacific on Thursday night. While he’s glad about the communication and transparency from the company, there are still a lot of question marks.
“There’s a lot of residents concerned about this,” Frigo says, “Although they keep saying they want a good neighbor, when we asked them to address the concerns about the trucks, they they don’t really have an answer.”
Another major concern raised by residents challenges the town, rather than the company. Frigo argues that the town’s track record on listening to constituents is questionable. He claims the town initially voted down the construction of an apartment complex after the community took a strong stance against it – but later approved the site as a TIF district.
“My fear is that the town is going to favor developers over its residents,” Frigo explains, “We were sold on: ‘Well, this is good for our community and it’ll lower your taxes.’ – I’ve looked at the last 10 years of my taxes, and they have not lowered. In fact, they’ve increased.”
Frigo expects a large community turnout for a public hearing about the placement of the Georgia-Pacific facility tonight, both in-person and virtually. The hearing was reportedly moved from the typical town hall conference room to a school to accommodate more people.
That hearing begins at 6:00 p.m.
WTAQ News reached out to representatives from both Georgia-Pacific and the Town of Lawrence, but neither were able to provide comment by the time this article was published.
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