Pullman, WA. Citizen’s Legal Battle Continues Against Wal-Mart
Residents in Pullman, Washington continue to wage a legal battle to block a Wal-Mart supercenter in their community.
Sprawl-Busters reported that in March of 2006, residents lost an appeal of a city ruling in favor of Wal-Mart before a Hearing Examiner, and were planning to take their appeal to Whitman County Superior Court. That court appeal went in Wal-Mart’s favor as well, but the battle continues. The group sent the following press release to Sprawl-Busters this week:
The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development (PARD) announced today that they will take their case against the proposed Pullman, Washington Wal-Mart to the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Spokane.
The decision came after several weeks of deliberation and discussion. PARD legal liaison T.V. Reed stated that “while the appeal will be costly, we have had great support from thousands of folks in the community, and currently have a new membership drive under way. PARD will continue to make the case that a huge supercenter on Bishop Boulevard would drastically impede access to the hospital, be dangerous for pedestrians, and negatively impact the local economy.
Reed added that “a host of new and planned developments along Bishop have made the traffic situation far worse than when the store was originally proposed.” In his ruling last month, Judge David Frazier praised PARD’s thorough research and substantial evidence about traffic dangers and the lack of an independent analysis of the impact of the supercenter on the local economy.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Community Impact | Site Fights & Local Ordinances
Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, December 05, 2006 | Permalink
‘Which Part Of ‘No’ Does Wal-Mart Not Understand?’
An editorial from the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times:
Once again, the city of Hercules has given Wal-Mart the boot.
For the second time this year, the City Council voted unanimously last week to invoke eminent domain to block the giant retailer’s plans to build a megastore at the future Bayside Marketplace along John Muir Parkway.
The city says it is within its legal rights to force Wal-Mart to sell the 171/4-acre parcel because the land is afflicted with “blight.”
The legality of the city’s use of the eminent domain law is questionable. City officials recently offered to pay Wal-Mart $14.5 million for the land --$1.5 million more than its offer earlier this year.
The hefty price tag hardly supports the argument that the land is a physical eyesore or economic drain on the city.
The matter ultimately will have to be resolved in the courts. In the meantime, the land will sit vacant and neither the city nor Wal-Mart will be able to develop it.
Yet one can’t blame the city for using every weapon in its arsenal against a bully with unlimited pockets that seems determined to proceed with a development many Hercules residents want no part of.
Mayor Trevor Evans-Young and the rest of the City Council are to be commended for standing firm in their fight against the world’s largest retailer in a David-versus-Goliath struggle.
Hercules residents drafted a plan for their city and what they want it to look like. Residents envision a pedestrian-friendly waterfront with small shops.
They don’t want to look like every other town and city in the United States that has been overrun by big-box stores that run local shops out of business.
For that very reason, city officials set a 64,000-square-square foot-store limit at Bayside.
Wal-Mart was well aware of that limit when it submitted plans for a monster, 168,000-square-foot store. But company officials showed disregard for the local regulations.
When the city rejected that application, Wal-Mart returned with a proposal for a 99,000-square-foot store.
Which part of “no” does Wal-Mart not understand?
Wal-Mart has accused Hercules officials of acting in bad faith through their “illegal” use of eminent domain. They may be right on that score, but it is Wal-Mart that has been acting in bad faith.
If the company wants to build a store in Hercules, it needs to work with the local community, rather than attempting to bulldoze its way to what it wants.
- Click here, here, and here to learn more about Hercules’s residents fight against Wal-Mart.
Posted by Russ Fagaly on Monday, December 04, 2006 | Permalink
Knightdale, NC. Citizen Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart Heard By Judge
On August 29, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that a group called CARE, Citizens Against Residential Encroachment, had filed a lawsuit against the town of Knightdale, North Carolina for voting to rezone residential land to commercial, in order to build a Super Wal-Mart shopping center.
In June, the town council voted 3-2 to allow the developer, Wakefield Associates, to build the Village Park Commons, a shopping center with about 439,000 s.f. of retail space. The project required the rezoning of 19 acres of land for a 206,000 s.f. Wal-Mart Supercenter.
The lawsuit, filed by 19 plaintiffs, went to court in Raleigh on November 30th, and according to group organizer Rita Rakestraw, the suit seeks to force a revote by the Town Council. The plaintiffs charge that Knightdale failed to properly notify surrounding residents of public hearings to discuss the case and that the town should not have granted the developer numerous exceptions to its own ordinances.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Site Fights & Local Ordinances | Lawsuits
Posted by Al Norman on Monday, December 04, 2006 | Permalink
Hercules, CA. City Flexes Eminent Domain Powers Against Wal-Mart--Again
Wal-Mart, the corporation that has been happy to see communities use eminent domain powers to advance its stores, now doesn’t like being on the other side of that coin.
The city council in Hercules, California has, for the second time, voted to use eminent domain powers to acquire a parcel of land owned by Wal-Mart.
Sprawl-Busters reported on May 5, 2006, that the city council in Hercules was poised to take Wal-Mart’s land by eminent domain. This week, Hercules voted again to use that power—and again their action was applauded by residents in the council chambers. But Wal-Mart was not clapping. “Eminent domain is not supposed to be used as a popularity contest,” a Wal-Mart attorney was quoted as saying in the Contra Costa Times.
Opponents of a superstore have argued that a big-box store of this size is incompatible with the city’s pedestrian scale plans for the waterfront and central Hercules area. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart sued the city over the May council vote, charging that the Hercules Redevelopment Agency’s authority to invoke eminent domain had expired.
The city holds that Wal-Mart’s property is economically “blighted” because of the lack of activity. The city says Wal-Mart’s plans do not conform to a 64,000 s.f. store size limit at Bayside Marketplace. The city did not follow up with eminent domain in court but in September, the council reaffirmed the redevelopment agency’s authority to invoke eminent domain, which Wal-Mart contended had expired, and extended it for 12 years.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Site Fights & Local Ordinances | Organizing
Posted by Al Norman on Monday, December 04, 2006 | Permalink
River Falls, WI. Wal-Mart Pulls Out By Email
Residents in Wisconsin report that Wal-Mart won’t be moving into River Falls, Wisconsin, ending years of wasted work and investment.
The word of Wal-Mart’s collapse came via email. According to the River Falls Journal, a proposed Wal-Mart superstore on Highway 35N has been scrapped. The news did not come directly from Wal-Mart, but from its engineering firm, which sent an email to the newspaper which read, “I’ve received notice from Wal-Mart that they will not be proceeding with their proposed development at the intersection of Highway 35 and Radio Road...”
The newspaper reports that River Falls Mayor Don Richards called the engineering firm when he learned of the email. The engineering company listed three reasons for the withdrawal.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Community Impact | Site Fights & Local Ordinances
Posted by Al Norman on Monday, December 04, 2006 | Permalink
San Diego, CA. Another City “Caps” The Size of Stores
Big box stores can be stopped with one little sentence.
A growing number of communities are amending their zoning code to keep out very large stores. The most recent case comes this week from San Diego, California, where the city council took the first major step towards imposing a size cap when it voted 5-3 on November 28th to ban retail stores of more than 90,000 s.f. that use 10% of interior space to sell groceries or other merchandise that is not subject to sales tax.
This ordinance is modeled on similar ordinances in California, most notably Turlock, where Wal-Mart has failed repeatedly to challenge the law in the courts. The Mayor of San Diego told reporters he will veto the new cap if it goes through its required second vote in January, but if the Council holds its 5 votes, it has sufficient support to override the Mayor’s veto.
A spokesman for the Mayor told the Associated Press, "What the Council did tonight was social engineering, not good public policy.” One city councilor told the AP, “Quite simply, I do not think it is the role of the San Diego City
Council to dictate where families should buy their groceries.” But Councilman Tony Young, who voted for the cap, said, "I have a vision for San Diego and that vision is about walkable, livable communities, not big, mega-structures that inhibit people’s lives."
Wal-Mart has several options at this point.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Community Impact | legislation
Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, November 30, 2006 | Permalink
New Delhi, India. Wal-Mart Finds A Partner to Break Into India
A telecommunications company in India has announced a partnership with Wal-Mart that will unleash the giant retailer throughout the Indian economy.
Bharti Enterprises has signed a deal with Wal-Mart to open a chain of retail stores in India, according to the Associated Press. The deal will result in hundreds of stores in one of the world’s fastest growing retail markets.
Bharti Enterprises Ltd. is a business conglomerate with a core focus on telecommunications – but this is the kind of indigenous company Wal-Mart needs to get around Indian law, which restricts foreign companies from directly operating multi-product retail chains in India. Bharti owns a cell phone company with 30 million users in India, but this retail deal is an entirely new line of business for the Indian company. Wal-Mart and Bharti Enterprises have created a joint venture in which the stores will be set up locally like a franchise.
Political groups and domestic businesses have thus far prevented the Indian government from allowing foreign companies to operate multi-product retail chains. “It is going to be a large investment,” the head of Bharti told the AP. “We are going to be a big player in this market.” Bharti said the first stores are slated to open by the end of summer, 2007, and that there will be several hundred stores, which will be branded with Bharti’s and Wal-Mart’s names.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: | India
Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, November 30, 2006 | Permalink
Freedom, Antis, PA. Residents Slowing Down Superstore Pair
Wal-Mart has announced two superstore projects along interstate 99 in Freedom and Antis, Pennsylvania. The Freedom location is off the Roaring Spring exit of route 99, and the Antis location is off the Pinecroft exit.
The retailer hopes to have both stores open for business by 2008, according to the Altoona Mirror newspaper. “Wal-Mart told us up front they wouldn’t dig an ounce until they have all the permits in hand,” Freedom Township’s Supervisor told the newspaper. “They don’t want to start a project and spend any unnecessary money, then not be able to do anything about it.”
Blair county has given the Freedom store a permit for the discharge of stormwater runoff. But in Antis, Wal-Mart has been delayed by a coalition of BelAire Estates residents, who are neighbors of the proposed 180,000 s.f. store. Negotiations with citizens has already delayed the Antis store by a year, according to the newspaper.
The store’s opening “just depends on how we can work out the different issues,” a Wal-Mart spokesman said. Residents are unhappy with traffic problems and the size of the buffer-zone between the store and BelAire Estates.
Read the rest of this story ...
Topics: Community Impact | Economic/Small Business
Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, November 30, 2006 | Permalink
Page 181 of 208 pages « First < 179 180 181 182 183 > Last »
