New London — The owner of a trash-hauling company with an existing location in New London is pitching the idea of a new solid waste management and recycling facility near an exisiting rail line off Fourth Street.

Jason Manafort, the principal of Connecticut Waste Processing Materials LLC and Generation Four Realty LLC, is seeking approval for a 26,382-square-foot facility on a three-acre parcel at 45 Fourth St. that used to be a railroad maintenance yard.

The facility will be used to receive solid waste and recyclable materials and Manafort plans to construct a railroad spur to allow materials to be shipped out by rail car. He runs a similar rail haul facility in Berlin, Conn.

The facility will handle nonhazardous waste streams such as construction debris, oversized municipal solid waste and recyclables, along with wood, scrap metal, electronics and ordinary trash, according to the application to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

Attorney Gordon Videll, who represents the applicant, obtained approval of a zoning regulation amendment from the commission last year that allows for such a facility with a special permit. A public hearing for the plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. on July 20, during a commission meeting at City Hall.

Videll said a good example of a use of the facility would be for the future demolition of the Thames River Apartments on Crystal Avenue. The demolition debris easily could be loaded onto rail cars and hauled away.

The facility would not only offer a place for CWPM to haul its waste but also offer local businesses a convenient location to safely manage waste, Manafort wrote in his application. He alludes to a significant investment at the site but no dollar figure is attached to the application.

“This is a very practical and synergistic use of their existing businesses but also will be used by others to dispose of solid clean construction waste,” Videll said. “It’s a railroad-dependent use. It will bring in jobs, tax revenue and theoretically decrease costs of disposal of waste for the city. The hauling of the garbage is one of the more costly parts of it.”

The application lists the creation of up to 10 jobs.

City records show that the parcel where the facility is proposed was purchased by Generation Four Realty in 2016 from Central Vermont Railway Inc., known as C.V. Properties Inc., for $125,000.

Public Records show the predecessor of CWPM was until 2001 a division of Manafort Brothers, one of the largest construction and demolition contractors in the state.

Jason Manafort in 2007 was sentenced to a month in federal prison after he was swept up with more than two dozen others in a federal investigation into racketeering and price-fixing among waste haulers in Connecticut and eastern New York.

The target of the probe was James Galante, who at the time controlled more than two dozen waste-disposal companies in the state. Also indicted as part of the investigation was Matthew “Matty the Horse” Ianniello, the reputed boss of New York’s Genovese crime family, and Joseph Santopietro, a former mayor of Waterbury.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Manafort had pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of property. He reportedly had disposed of a computer just days before federal law enforcement officials served him with a warrant to search his offices in 2005.

Manafort was not immediately available to comment.

Citing Manafort's philanthropic and business successes, Videll said he thought Manafort’s past is not relevant to the new proposal.

g.smith@theday.com