Diesel island, not truck stop, is plan for site
Frantic and sometimes furious south-side residents flooded City Hall with phone calls and emailed local news reporters earlier this week, seeking answers about a new development adjacent to a Shell gas station on Airport Road, not far from N.M. 599. Fears of a Frankenstein-like truck stop were evoked. Two weeks earlier, a contentious Pilot Flying J travel center proposal in Santa Fe County mysteriously washed up dead — with the Tennessee-based trucking giant, without explanation, dropping its court appeal of county commissioners’ rejection of the plan.
But concerned residents apparently had leaped to a conclusion: The Pilot Flying J flies again, now in our backyard, the neighborhood west of Santa Fe Country Club. Not so much. The development is a self-service diesel filling island, an extension of the gas station next door, according to a site plan filed with the city and a brief conversation with an executive at Brewer Oil Co., the property owner.
The plan shows a handful of pumps, surrounded by new landscaping — 46 trees and 101 shrubs.
The Brewer official declined to give his name, saying he wouldn’t be able to “deal with” a deluge of unhappy neighbors.
“When we built the Shell store, demand for diesel was not that great,” the Brewer representative said. “But as you know, today, all you gotta do is set and watch the road a little bit, there’s tons of diesel. All we’re doing is putting in a diesel island.”
There will be no new convenience store, fast-food restaurant or any other accoutrements of a “truck stop,” he said.
The Brewer representative said the company doesn’t expect the diesel island to increase traffic in the area.
The 2-acre trapezoidal lot is zoned C-2, general commercial, where a “filling station” is designated as a permitted use by city code. A permitted use impels only a staff review, not a public hearing.
Permitted uses “fall within the assumptions of what the road can handle,” said city Land Use Director Carol Johnson. “Airport Road is an arterial road and has significant capacity.”
David Brown, a resident of the nearby Vista Primera neighborhood who voiced concerns about the plan, said, “These diesel trucks, when they egress onto Old Airport Road, their lights will shine directly into the homes and apartments about 30 feet away. Those people will never sleep.”
Meanwhile, for sale signs recently appeared at the Santa Fe County lot south of Interstate 25 that was to be home to the proposed Pilot Flying J truck stop and travel center.
Local attorneys and a developer who had represented the trucking company have not responded to messages seeking clarification about why the appeal of the county decision, filed in state District Court, was dropped earlier this month with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.