VIRGINIA SITE FIGHT: BIG BOX PLAN STALLS

Decision stalls for big box site plan [The Roanoke (Va.) Times]

BLACKSBURG—Blacksburg residents will have to wait until Tuesday for the outcome of the latest battle over whether a big-box store, rumored to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter, will be coming to town.

The latest scrimmage came Wednesday in a four-hour appeal hearing before the town zoning board. Chairman Wayne Hensley said the complexity of the case, and the need to file additional written support of each side’s position, made it necessary to delay a decision.

Fairmount Properties of Ohio, which got a conditional general commercial rezoning from the town council to develop part of a 40-acre tract on South Main Street, ran into a new ordinance requiring a special-use permit for any retail building larger than 80,000 square feet. The council enacted the ordinance after seeing a new site plan for a 175,000-square-foot store believed to be a Wal-Mart.

The developer filed a suit seeking a court order to make the town approve the plan. Circuit Judge Bobby Turk said that Fairmount had not used up its administrative remedies. An appeal to Zoning Administrator Steve Hundley got a response that Fairmount had to seek the special approval for the larger building.

That was the decision Fairmount took to the zoning appeals board.

James Cowan and Richard Cranwell, representing the developer, argued that the town was effectively taking back an approval it had already given. Town Attorney Larry Spencer and Greg Haley, an attorney hired by the town, argued that Fairmount had not submitted a specific-use plan and therefore the town could not have approved it.

Fairmount representatives had said they needed the rezoning before they could line up tenants, Haley said. So the ordinance enacted after the rezoning approval still would apply.

Fifteen people addressed the appeals board, arguing that a big-box store near their properties could diminish their value and cause traffic safety problems. Tom Diller said Fairmount had pulled a “bait and switch” by promising developments such as courtyard-type apartments and then substituting the big-box store.

Hensley said the appeals board had to consider only points of law and not those arguments. He said everyone would know how each board member voted when the time came.

Cranwell urged the board to overrule Hundley’s decision and not consider public reaction. “You may be unpopular for a while,” he admitted.

James Cornwell, the board’s attorney, said either side as well as the public would have until noon Monday to file any written documentation pertaining to the case at the town’s planning and engineering office.

Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, July 26, 2007

Click Here for a Printer-Friendly Version