UTAH SITE FIGHT: THE GAME IS FIXED

No secrecy in Centerville’s road to Wal-Mart [Davis County (Utah) Clipper]

If only we’d known then what we know now. Though Wal-Mart is set to open its doors Sept. 19, more than a few residents are still pointing fingers at certain times, rule changes and officials, claiming that had they been better informed at that point they would have been able to keep the biggest of all big-boxes out of their city.

“We voted them down once or twice, and they still came in,” said Janet Wenzel, co-owner of the Edelweiss Gift Shop in Centerville. “We put signs out on our front lawn saying we didn’t want Wal-Mart, and they still came in.”

In reality, though, the process by which Wal-Mart came to roost in Centerville isn’t as dramatic or shadowy as most people think.

“The area had been zoned high-density commercial for the past 30 years,” said Centerville City Manager Steve Thacker. “If we’d tried to keep them out and they’d had to resort to legal action, I believe they would have won.”

Public outcry against a Wal-Mart moving into Centerville began in 2003, when the city council got wind of the property owner entertaining offers from Wal-Mart and possibly other big-box stores to buy 22.5 acres of open land at Parrish Lane and 400 West.

Earlier, that land had been part of 50 acres that Envision Utah and some residents had planned to turn into a mixed-use “urban village” within the city, combining residential and retail with an emphasis on trails and pedestrian mobility.

Planning for the village began in 1999 but met with resistance from south Centerville residents who didn’t want to deal with any more multi-family housing in their area of the city. The issue was divisive enough that it became a major focus of the 2001 elections, with then-mayoral candidate Michael Deamer running on an anti-urban village ticket. He was voted in, and the village died its final death in the city government.

“None of us know if the urban village could have been pulled off, property-wise,” said Thacker, a supporter of the urban village.

“With the change in the mayor and city council we lost political support before we could find out.”

For some residents, however, the Wal-Mart that took the village’s place stands as a painful reminder of all that might have been.

“I’ve come to terms with the fact that Wal-Mart’s here,” said Tamilyn Fillmore, a mother and Centerville resident who supported the village. “But it’s so heartbreaking to think we had the bird in hand and threw it out the window.”

Though Deamer and city officials worked to incorporate some of the urban village’s trails elsewhere in the city plan, no one presented a new idea to take advantage of the 50 acres of the still commercially-zoned open space. This left Wal-Mart free to later purchase the space.

“Under the old zoning laws, all Wal-Mart would have had to do was fill out an application and pay the fee,” said former Centerville Mayor Michael Deamer.

“All we could do was try and lessen the impact Wal-Mart would have on the city.”

Some residents still argue that a zoning change that occurred in December 2003 somehow made it easier for Wal-Mart to move in, and that the change was kept hidden from the public.

In fact, the change was a city-wide readjusting of zoning that the city had been working on for the last year, and the conditional restrictions on the property’s high-density zoning were increased and strengthened by the change.

The new zoning also made possible the list of concessions Wal-Mart agreed to make during the planning process, including funding traffic projects.

The city also rezoned seven of the property owner’s original 30 acres to medium-density residential, to create more of a buffer zone between existing homes and any big boxes that might come in.

“The standards in the original code were so weak that the change actually made it more difficult for a big box to come in,” said City Manager Thacker.

Despite the opposite image still lingering in the public mind, city officials of the time feel they did what they could.

“People still comment to me about Wal-Mart all the time,” said Deamer.

“But I was personally opposed to the store coming to Centerville.

“We certainly didn’t bring them into the city.”