FLORIDA SITE FIGHT: WE LIKE OUR TREES

Wal-Mart tree plan stirs furor [Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal]

DAYTONA BEACH—When a major retailer builds a 160,000-square-foot building, throws in 769 parking spaces and 16 car corrals, a loss of trees is expected.

But members of a neighborhood group say the new Wal-Mart planned for Nova Road, between Madison and Mason avenues, is going too far. Preliminary site plans for the Supercenter show the company plans to save 11 of 244 historic and “specimen” trees, including old oaks, pines and even a cypress tree or two that have trunk diameters of 12 inches or more.

However, Wal-Mart officials say the plans don’t tell the entire story—they are discussing with city officials plans to replant 867 trees on the site, including partly grown live oaks, crepe myrtles and others.

“Clearly, there are some beautiful live oaks on this property that will have to be removed for us to move forward,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Quenta Vettel said. “We are proposing in that mitigation plan to put in some beautiful trees.”

Though city codes call for saving at least half the specimen trees at a construction site, city officials say that because the Wal-Mart is proposed as a Planned Commercial Development, it does not have to abide by the codes.

“The development proposal shows saving 11 specimen trees; a shortfall of 111 specimen trees,” city landscape architect Daniel Hunter said in a report. “A development proposal of lesser impact would increase the likelihood of saving more existing trees.”

The Wal-Mart Supercenter is planned for the 18.5-acre site where Father Lopez Catholic High School is.

Evans L. Smith, who is pastor of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and co-chairman of The Kingston Community Group, said that’s too many trees.

“Those trees are over 100 years old,” Smith said. “Daytona Beach is supposed to be Tree City, USA.”

Vettel said the company actually will remove 795 trees—most of which are small—and about 50 that are in poor condition. She said the site is in a redevelopment area, so something would be built there, and any major development would have to remove trees.

The project could go before the city Planning Board as early as July 26, if Wal-Mart meets a Thursday deadline for filing its final site plan, city spokeswoman Susan Cerbone said. The City Commission could have a first reading to consider the project in August, and a final reading in September, she said.

Members of the Kingston group, which is for residents near where the Wal-Mart is proposed, have been in talks with Wal-Mart about several issues, Smith said.

“We’ve spoken with a couple of engineers and other people. The issue, more than anything, is we’re concerned about the community, the safety of the community and the community’s well-being and how is Wal-Mart going to affect that?” Smith said.

Smith said he does not think the project is a done deal. He also said it would be going too far to say the group opposes the new store, but he said he hopes Wal-Mart officials will act upon the concerns of the community.

“We’re willing to listen and hear what they have to say. And we’re hoping that they will listen and hear what we have to say,” Smith said. “Some people didn’t feel like they were listening before. We feel now like they are listening.”

Posted by Beth Gostanian on Monday, June 25, 2007

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