APOPKA, Fla,None — A group of Apopka homeowners say they're upset that a waste company isn't expanding a nearby landfill.
Waste Management has withdrawn its bid to expand a landfill off of Keene Road.
Some homeowners were hoping the waste company would buy them out.
They thought this would be their way out of living next to what they say is a trifecta of bad neighbors.
Renne Cooper and her family have been living off McQueen Road for 52 years.
"It used to be the greatest place to raise kids," Cooper said.
She says "used to" because a lot about her neighborhood has changed over the years.
Orange County bought land to the south to build a wastewater treatment plant. Waste Management built a landfill across the street. And Stericycle, a company that disposes of medical waste, set up shop next door.
"We used to start smelling the gas at night," Cooper said.
The neighbors wanted out.
And when Waste Management won initial approval to upgrade its landfill from class three to class one, residents on McQueen Road approached the company with a proposal to buy their land. And, they say, Waste Management agreed.
"We were really kinda singing the Hallelujah song," said Cooper.
“It reached the point to where I hired an attorney to draw up contracts for the residents," said neighborhood resident Pete Hunter.
The McQueen residents, led by Hunter, began to figure out how the money would be divided.
The Coopers would get up to $100,000.
"We thought it was basically done,” said Cooper.
But the deal began to falter when other Apopka residents complained the about the upgrade.
Thursday Waste Management withdrew its bid and its offer to the residents.
"We feel like we’ve lost a lot and that we continue to lose and now this just seems like the biggest loss of them all," said Cooper.
There are about 26 families that own houses on the block. They say their plan now is to try to get the land rezoned to industrial, making it more enticing for another commercial entity to buy them out.
WFTV
