Scrap metal processor General Iron is continuing its legal fight against the city of Chicago for allegedly violating the city’s own rules and the law, in dragging its feet in awarding the permit the company needs to operate a new metal recycling facility on Chicago’s southeast side.
Earlier this month, General Iron, operating under the name Southside Recycling, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against the city.
The new filing seeks a court order requiring the city to issue the operating permit that Southside Recycling says it is owed under both an agreement with City Hall and under city rules, which the recycler says it has strictly followed in building its new $80 million metal recycling facility.
David J. Chizewer
| goldbergkohn.com
“(Southside Recycling) has jumped through every possible hoop, has supplied every last piece of information, has cooperated through every City delay, and has more than satisfied every permitting requirement,” the company wrote in its complaint.
“Whether you are an individual citizen or a business that has spent $80 million creating the most environmentally conscious metal recycling plant in the country, you must be able to rely on a government that follows the law and its agreements.”
General Iron had first filed suit against the city in May. In that complaint, the company similarly accused the city of violating its rules and the law, making a political decision to bow to the will of community and environmental activists opposed to General Iron’s project, in general. And those legal violations, the company said, amounted to an unconstitutional taking of its property by the city.
A federal judge, however, noted the city of Chicago had not yet issued a final decision on Southside Recycling’s operating permit. That lack of a final decision, the judge said, meant the recycler’s case could not be pursued in federal court, “at least yet.”
The judge specifically declared he was not expressing any view on General Iron’s other claims about its treatment at the hands of city officials.
In the complaints, General Iron detailed an alleged politically motivated bureaucratic nightmare it says it has endured for more than a year at the hands of the city and the activists the company said city officials are seeking to appease.
According General Iron, the city has repeatedly backtracked throughout late 2020 and early 2021 from its earlier support for Southside Recycling’s new facility on 175 acres in Chicago’s South Deering neighborhood.
The company has worked to develop the site since 2018, when the city pressured General Iron to cease operations at the scrap metal facility it had operated for decades on Chicago’s North Side. The city and General Iron then worked out an agreement, under which the city would allow General Iron to construct a new facility on the city’s southeast side, to reduce emissions.
As part of that process, the city explicitly rewrote its ordinances to create regulations governing large recycling facilities, like that proposed by General Iron.
As the Southside Recycling development process moved forward, the company said the city and both the Illinois and U.S. environmental protection agencies repeatedly assured the company its plans either met or exceeded all federal, state and city regulations, including “environmental justice concerns.”
The IEPA, with input from the U.S. EPA, then granted Southside Recycling the permits it required to construct the facility.
However, when the company formally applied for its operating permit from the city in November 2020, the project came under assault from activists, who demanded the city deny the permit.
The activists have said they are concerned about the projects alleged impact on the neighboring predominantly Black neighborhoods.
In response, the city has slow-walked the approval process, as city officials suddenly claimed to have identified “deficiencies” in the project. General Iron said it has addressed those concerns, yet the city has still refused to issue the permit, a decision the company said violates the city’s own rules and state law.
The city has since suspended further review, saying it received a request to do so from the U.S. EPA under President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Randall Samborn, a spokesperson for Southside Recycling, said the city and U.S. EPA, however, have refused to communicate further with the recycler, nor have they conducted any further environmental or “environmental justice” analyses, since suspending the permit approval process months ago.
Despite its loss in federal court, General Iron said the law remains on its side, and the city must issue the operating permit.
They further disputed the notion that the project presents a debate between economic development and "environmental justice."
Samborn noted prior environmental reviews, conducted by the city, state and federal environmental regulators, as well as others, indicated the facility would be a “minor source of emissions for that location.”
“We are the poster child for what a model metal shredding facility should be,” said Samborn. “Yet, as this process has played out, we have become a demonized bogeyman in a community that has valiantly fought against a host of environmental issues for decades.”
Should the city ultimately prevail, Samborn said such a ruling would further send a “terrible message” to anyone seeking to do business in the city of Chicago.
“If you’re seeking to invest many millions of dollars in this city, and doing everything you’re asked to do, follow all the rules, cross all your t’s and dot all your I’s, but the city says, for arbitrary and political reasons, we’re holding up a stop sign – it should make everyone wonder how they can rely on the city’s representations,” Samborn said.
The complaint asks the court to issue a mandamus order, requiring the city to issue the operating permit. It also includes a breach of contract count, under which the company asks the court to order the city to pay it $100 million. That count centers on allegations the city violated its agreement with General Iron, under which the company ceased operations at its former location and invested $80 million in constructing a new recycling center on the southeast side.
The city of Chicago has not yet replied to General Iron’s new complaint.
Cook County Circuit Judge Michael T. Mullen gave the city until July 28 to respond to General Iron’s mandamus request.
Southside Recycling is represented in the action by attorneys David Chizewer and Harleen Kaur, of the firm of Goldberg Kohn, of Chicago.