Lake Wylie, SC. Residents Want Wal-Mart to Listen
Landing wants an appropriate Wal-Mart [Lake Wylie Pilot (S.C.)]
Jacqui Marquez hopes to help her community get what it wants from Wal-Mart the old-fashioned way—by asking nicely.
Marquez has gathered 250 signatures from the Landing neighborhood in Lake Wylie asking Wal-Mart to consider resident input before designing or building a store at the Three Points location.
“A lot of times with things like this, people just end up complaining,” said Marquez, who has lived in Lake Wylie for about four years. “What we wanted to do is to galvanize people in a positive direction.”
Marquez knows the Wal-Mart Supercenter is coming one way or another to the Mill Creek Commons development at the S.C. 274/557 intersection. She wants the new store to be as attractive as possible, especially for her Landing neighbors who live within eyesight of the new center.
“We just hope it looks nice,” Marquez said. “We want it to have a certain look and keep the feel of Lake Wylie as we know it.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, May 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Pennsville, N.J. Wal-Mart’s Assault On Wildlife Refuge Is Over
A coalition of labor, neighbors, and environmental groups has won an important victory over Wal-Mart and sprawl development. On January 25, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart Realty had chosen a site to construct a 220,000 s.f. superstore abutting the 2,800 acre Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. This turned out to be not only an environmental blunder, but a public relations disaster for the retailer.
The company is spending millions to look ‘green’ to the public. Part of Supawna Refuge is designated by the Department of Environmental Protection’s Endangered and Non-Game Species Program as a bald eagle and raptor foraging area. The Planning Board in Pennsville had no qualms about allowing Wal-Mart into the Refuge, but that’s when the retailer ran into a legal swamp. A group called COPAS, the Citizens of Pennsville Against Sprawl, fought the project on environmental and traffic issues, among others. Residents said one Wal-Mart in Pennsville, is one more than enough. The existing discount store in the township is 1/4 mile away, and would have been shut down if the supercenter was ever built.
Wal-Mart wanted to build on the Sinnickson farm, 79 acres of land that includes a salt marsh, meadows, and open fields. The superstore footprint alone was 4.6 football fields in size, plus a 1,400 parking lot. The property lies along the headwaters of the Mill Creek, which is one of the most sensitive bird habitats in New Jersey. Mill Creek feeds into the Delaware River, which hosts at least 7 endangered species. In a remarkable piece of rationalization, Wal-Mart suggested that creating 22 acres of impervious surface, and a major increase in stormwater runoff, was actually good for the wildlife refuge. A Wal-Mart spokesman said the supercenter would protect the watershed by filtering out pesticides and fertilizer residue in the soil from draining into the watershed. This is the same retailer who has been fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for its shoddy construction practices, which led to the siltation of nearby streams in several states. COPAS and the Stop Wal-Mart NJ coalition pressured the township’s planning board to adopt an ordinance that would bar “big box” stores. “It’s become a huge issue here,” Mayor Tom Strong told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, May 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Beaufort, SC. “We Want Good Jobs”
Make sure projects lure high-paying jobs to county [Island Packet (S.C.)]
Beaufort County Council’s vote to designate Buckwalter Place a multicounty industrial park sets up the framework officials hope to use to attract higher-paying jobs to Beaufort County.That’s a laudable goal, but as with most things, there are tradeoffs in the deal. Officials will have to walk a fine line between economic development that brings better-paying jobs and subsidizing a developer by paying for projects that should be paid for by the private sector.
The agreement among Bluffton, where the 115-acre development site sits along Buckwalter Parkway, and Beaufort and Jasper counties sets up fees in lieu of property taxes on 11 parcels.
The fees, equal to what would be paid each year in property taxes, go to a special fund to be used for specific projects, such as buildings and roads, that benefit the industrial park area. The idea is to provide incentives for businesses to locate here. One of the first projects to be considered is a parking facility, according to the county’s 20-year agreement with the town of Bluffton. Bluffton and the county must agree on the scope, details and financing of any project.
The public money is spent only if there is a contractual commitment for private investment at the site, according to comments from Bluffton town manager Bill Workman in County Council meeting minutes. The designation also allows a business locating there to tap state economic incentives.
One percent of the money collected automatically goes to Jasper County, just as Beaufort County receives 1 percent of the fees in lieu of taxes collected for the multicounty industrial park that includes the Hardeeville Wal-Mart and New River Auto Mall. Taxes collected for the Beaufort County School District won’t be affected.
The concept is similar to a tax-increment financing district in that revenue is segregated and used for a specific purpose. And it operates like a TIF district in that it diverts revenue from the county’s operatingbudget.
County Councilman Steve Baer, the lone vote against the agreement on its third and final vote, points to the fact that the plan takes money away from important county services, such as parks,
libraries and law enforcement.
Now that the industrial park designation is in place, we expect county and town officials to thoroughly vet any proposed use of this money. It should not be used to benefit businesses locating there that bring the same type of service jobs already offered in Beaufort County.
The proposed projects should make the difference between a business offering high-skill, high-paying jobs locating here or going somewhere else. It should not be used to make it cheaper for Buckwalter Place to be developed.
Buckwalter Place already has enjoyed the benefits of a new Bluffton development rights bank that set up a mechanism to increase residential development at the site. That same developer
already had been paid by the county to reduce residential and commercial development on
another Buckwalter tract.
County Council Chairman Weston Newton says the council has the authority to put the diverted money back into the county’s operating fund if the council doesn’t deem infrastructure incentives worthwhile.
That’s good because the businesses and residents who will locate at Buckwalter Place in the future will be using those services Baer is worried about paying for.
The rest of us taxpayers should come out ahead, not behind, with this deal.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, May 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lake Wylie, SC. Residents Worry About What Wal-Mart Will Bring
Jacqui Marquez hopes to help her community get what it wants from Wal-Mart the old-fashioned way—by asking nicely.Marquez has gathered 250 signatures from the Landing neighborhood in Lake Wylie asking Wal-Mart to consider resident input before designing or building a store at the Three Points location.
“A lot of times with things like this, people just end up complaining,” said Marquez, who has lived in Lake Wylie for about four years. “What we wanted to do is to galvanize people in a positive direction.”
Marquez knows the Wal-Mart Supercenter is coming one way or another to the Mill Creek Commons development at the S.C. 274/557 intersection. She wants the new store to be as attractive as possible, especially for her Landing neighbors who live within eyesight of the new center.
“We just hope it looks nice,” Marquez said. “We want it to have a certain look and keep the feel of Lake Wylie as we know it.”
Across the lake, Tega Cay residents and city leaders had plenty of say on how its new Wal-Mart would look. The store recently opened with a village ambiance that looks anything but big box.
The Lake Wylie group hopes to accomplish similar results.
York County Councilman Tom Smith, who represents Lake Wylie, has passed the Marquez’s petition on to Wal-Mart.
“They’re certainly not coming in with the old blue box,” Smith said.
Plans for the Wal-Mart exterior have not been filed with York County, though the other Mill Creek Commons anchor, Lowe’s Home Improvement, has filed plans. The Lowe’s site will be the standard store layout, company spokeswoman Maureen Rich told the Lake Wylie Pilot earlier this year.
Smith also sent Wal-Mart a letter from the newly formed Citizens for the Preservation of Lake Wylie addressing similar cosmetic concerns.
“We are pretty close to the darn thing,” said group organizer Matt Cullen, also a Landing resident. “I think the way it looks, the aesthetics of the Wal-Mart, are pretty important to all of us.”
A construction time frame for Wal-Mart has not been released.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Blacksburg, VA. Website Reveals Delopment to be Wal-Mart Site
Web site labels big-box store a Wal-Mart [Roanoke Times (Va.)]
The case for a suspected plan to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Blacksburg continued to build this week as a posting for the project on a national construction Web site came to light.
Fairmount Properties—the Ohio development company that last year proposed an unnamed big-box store for land off South Main Street—declined Tuesday to discuss the posting found at bidclerk.com.
BidClerk is a membership site that bills itself as “the construction search engine.” According to the site, it connects contractors with land developers for the construction of public and private projects across the country.
A posting available to nonsubscribers and dated Jan. 29 advertises a need for contractors for site work and new construction for a Wal-Mart to be built in Blacksburg. The posting also contains a map that shows the general location of the site.
Fairmount lawyer Jim Cowan said Tuesday that the company has no comment on the posting.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lake Wylie, SC. Residents Want More Than Wal-Mart’s ‘Old Blue Box.’
“What we wanted to do is to galvanize people in a positive direction.” The group began with the assumption that they could not prevent Wal-Mart from opening a store in the Mill Creek Commons development. Having made that major concession, there’s little left for residents to do except try to put pearls on the pig. “We just hope it looks nice,” Marquez told the newspaper. “We want it to have a certain look and keep the feel of Lake Wylie as we know it.”
According to the Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce, the community is a “vibrant and thriving” place “where geography, people and economic vitality have fashioned a distinctive Southern lifestyle.” Lake Wylie is described as having a “comfortable, small town atmosphere” with “convenient proximity” to regional commercial centers. In short, “the perfect setting to live and do business.”
Into this perfect setting comes a Wal-Mart supercenter. The absurdity of this situation is that Wal-Mart recently opened a new supercenter across the lake in Tega Cay, South Carolina, roughly 5 miles away from Lake Wylie, and there is another superstore 7 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina. In fact, there are 12 Wal-Mart stores currently within 12 miles of Lake Wylie, ten of which are superstores. So this ‘distinctive Southern lifestyle’ is being crowded out by suburban sprawl. In Tega Cay, Wal-Mart used its “village superstore” format, which takes the façade of the building and makes it look like a series of small retail shops, using different building materials, roof lines, and elevations. But just behind the “skin” of the store, is the big box, with all its adverse impacts on the environment.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, May 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Little Egg Harbor, NJ. Wal-Mart Draws Opposition
LEHT Wal-Mart plan draws opposition [Press of Atlantic City (N.J.)]
Wal-Mart’s first presentation to the Planning Board was greeted Thursday night by a crowd of residents largely opposed to the planned superstore on Route 9.
The store itself, which would be more than 151,000 square feet including a 6,300-square-foot garden center, would be located on the southbound side of Route 9 approximately 700 feet north of Otis Bog Road.
William F. Harrison, one of the attorneys for Wal-Mart, explained that the store would offer everything that other large Wal-Mart locations in New Jersey offer but would not be nearly one of largest stores in the state, in terms of area. The developers also plan to put a bank on the property.
The plans introduced did not include details on traffic patterns, environmental effects or store operations, because the meeting was only an informal presentation of the plans.
Mayor Scott Stites spoke for the concerns he said he’s heard from many residents when he told the applicants that he was worried about the store’s ability to fit into the aesthetic theme the township has planned for that section of Route 9.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, May 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Little Egg Harbor, NJ. Big Box Wal-Mart Wants to Squeeze Into Little Egg
The Big Box of the retail world wants to come to the Little Egg. Wal-Mart is being reviewed May 1st by the Planning Board in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The giant retailer is presenting the township with a “concept plan” for a supercenter. The store would be located on Route 9, just north of Otis Bog Road. Wal-Mart’s Real Estate Business Trust is the applicant for the store. This is a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) that helps Wal-Mart avoid paying its fair share of state taxes. The Wal-Mart Business Trust has told township officials that it also plans to build a bank on an adjacent lot, according to the Press of Atlantic City. There’s currently a Wal-Mart store in Manahawkin, New Jersey about 9 miles away, and another in Mays Landing 19 miles south. The concept review is not a formal application. It allows a developer to make an informal presentation to the board. The public is permitted to be part of the discussion. The Planning Board then gives the developer their reactions to the plan, and the developer can return at a later date with a formal zoning application.
Wal-Mart is proposing a subdivision plan that would create four separate lots, according to the Asbury Park Press. The retailer had approached the state for a Coastal Area Facilities Review Act application, because the land Wal-Mart wants is in a coastal area. A spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection indicated about four months ago that a Cope’s gray tree frog, a state endangered species, and a Pine Barrens tree frog, a state threatened species, were found in parts of the wetlands. Therefore the wetland buffer setbacks will have to be readjusted in the area of the Cope’s gray tree frog area to require a 150-foot buffer. Other wetlands areas where there are no endangered species on the site would require only a 50-foot buffer.
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, May 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
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