Raynham, MA. Wal-Mart Delayed Indefinitely
Raynham Wal-Mart project facing delays [The Enterprise (Mass.)]
A final decision, involving possible construction of second Wal-Mart supercenter within the town, could be delayed for years if appeals of a negative court decision on Jan. 22 are filed by Demoulas Super Markets.
Town Planner Richard McCarthy, referring to a trial scheduled for Jan. 22 at Bristol Superior Court in Fall River, said that if Demoulas Super Markets Inc. of Tewksbury n parent company of Market Basket supermarkets and owner of the Market Basket Plaza on Route 138 in Raynham n receives a negative decision on Jan. 22 and then files a series of appeals “it’s not inconceivable that it go on for years.”
Referring to similar appeals, filed by abutting residents, of a Superior Court decision associated with the proposed expansion of another Wal-Mart supercenter located 10 minutes away off Route 44 in Raynham, McCarthy said that “it took three years for a final decision in 2000.”
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, January 14 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lockport, NY. Wal-Mart Juggling Two Lawsuits From Neighbors
A controversial Wal-Mart supercenter is locked in litigation in Lockport, New York after three years of bickering at hearings. Sprawl-Busters reported on October 1, 2007 that citizen opposition from neighbors in Lockport had forced Wal-Mart to withdraw its original plan for a 203,000-s.f., 24-hour supercenter at an old mall site. Wal-Mart presented officials with a reworked proposal, that was more amenable to town officials, but still did not garner the support of the Lockport Citizens for Smart Growth. Wal-Mart reduced the supercenter to 185,600 s.f., increased the back buffer to allow a 10-foot wall that would “protect” adjacent residential backyards from 50 to 100 feet, extended the wall northward to “shield” homes on another road, and added a 40-foot-wide ‘detention pond’ between the back of the store and the protective wall, and added other minor enhancements. An existing Bon Ton Department store will remain on the site. Despite these minor changes, the project remains a major intrusion into the residential neighborhood.
This week, Lockport Smart Growth Inc. filed a second lawsuit to halt construction of the supercenter, which has been approved by the town. The second suit names Wal-Mart and the Zoning Board of Appeals as defendants. In December, the ZBA granted no less than 14 area variances to allow Wal-Mart to build at the Lockport Mall. Homeowners Joan Grigg and Joanne Woodside are listed as plaintiffs on the court petition. In December, five homeowners sued the town planning board. Lockport Smart Growth charges that the planning and zoning approvals were granted illegally. “I am not anti-Walmart. I am against where they want to put it,” Woodside told the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. “That spot is too small. Once it’s here, it’s here and there’s nothing you can do.” Smart Growth says the zoning board broke town zoning law when it agreed to treat two legally separate properties as one. “ZBA effectively rewrote the zoning code by treating the project site as one property and by rendering decisions based on street lines instead of lot lines,” the suit says. “The variances granted are so substantial in scope that the ZBA effectively rewrote the zoning code.” The lawsuit claims that the zoning board violated state law by failing to consider the impacts of supercenter traffic. The New York State Environmental Quality Review Act
(SEQRA) requires the town to consider potential environmental impacts of a project and the ZBA allowed Wal-Mart to delay some traffic study until after construction — and promise to perform unspecified remediation if necessary. The law says effects have to be understood and remedial measures prescribed before construction. The plaintiffs argue that the two properties should have been treated separately, which would have requires
33 more variances. Wal-Mart originally applied for 41 variances in October 2006. Between then and last month, most of them disappeared from the proceedings, the suit said. A number of the variance requests were referred to the planning board, which approved several “extreme hardship”
waivers that Smart Growth also is challenging.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Al Norman on Monday, January 14 | 0 comments | Permalink
Pennsylvania Site Fight: Supercenter on the Way
Sandy Township Residents React To Wal-Mart Ruling [WJAC-TV (Penn.)] 
SANDY TOWNSHIP, Pa.—A new Wal-Mart Supercenter will be built in Sandy Township, Clearfield County after a state court denied the appeal of an opposition group.
The group, Sandy Citizens Arguing for Responsible Economic Development, or SCARED, argued against the Wal-Mart being built in an industrial zone.
The store will be built behind Wal-Mart’s current location in Sandy Township.
The current store will be torn down and the space will be used for parking.
Several Wal-Mart shoppers said they’re looking forward to the new store.
“It’s much better to buy everything at one store,” said Ashley Frantz. “That’s what you can do at a supercenter.”
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Friday, January 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
New Life For Massachusetts Wage Case
It has been a long, strange trip for Salvas v. Wal-Mart, the Massachusetts wage case first filed back in 2001, and now the highest court in Massachusetts is set to weigh in on whether Salvas can proceed as a class action.
The case was originally certified back in December of 2004, as a class of over 50,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees alleging they had been denied wages and meal/rest breaks. Wal-Mart appealed, and in November 2006 a second judge decertified the class on the basis that each associate’s situation was unique and therefore a class action was not proper. The 2006 decertification also included another significant decision:
The judge, who also excluded the testimony of the employees’ expert witness, said the employees could not rely on Wal-Mart’s payroll records to prove their case without first demonstrating that they are overwhelmingly accurate.
Well, Salvas and Wal-Mart can now prepare for Round 3, as the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has agreed to hear the Salvas appeal. And Wal-Mart might start considering ways to discredit the accuracy of its own payroll methods. According to Salvas attorney Robert Bonsignore:
Federal and state statutes require those records to be accurate, and Wal-Mart uses them to pay taxes and report its financial performance to shareholders...It’s good enough to pay the Wal-Mart family executives millions of dollars in bonuses and . . . it’s good enough to pay the store managers $100,000 or more in bonuses. But the court says it’s not good enough to pay the employees, period.
Sounds about right.
SJC gets Wal-Mart suit [Boston Herald]
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Corey Himrod on Thursday, January 10 | 9 comments | Permalink
Pennsylvania Site Fight: Wal-Mart Approved
Commonwealth Court OKs plan for Wal-Mart near DuBois [Times-Leader (Penn.)]
A Commonwealth Court has rejected a zoning challenge to a planned Wal-Mart Supercenter near DuBois.
The court rejected the challenge by Sandy Citizens Arguing for Responsible Economic Development to the rezoning of a 12-acre parcel in the Sandy Township-Developac Industrial Park. The group argued, among other things, that the parcel adjoins an existing Wal-Mart store.
The 2-1 ruling Tuesday upholds action by the township’s Zoning Hearing Board and a ruling by Clearfield County Court.
Wal-Mart said the larger Supercenter store will bring more than 200 jobs to the area.
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Thursday, January 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s Effect on Local Economies
An article in this month’s Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota’s gazette publication examines Wal-Mart’s effect on local communities. From the fedgazette:
[Wal-Mart] kills jobs and downtowns, say critics, and destroys community character. It’s been accused of discriminating against women, using illegal immigrants, requiring work off the clock and being overly aggressive in stopping the formation of labor unions among its workers.
It’s been blamed for sprawl and traffic congestion, as well as aesthetic offenses. For example, as the company upsizes from discount stores to supercenters in many towns, it often leaves behind an empty shell whose only visitors are the weeds that crop up in the unused parking lot, which might itself be in view of the new store. That new store, critics contend, probably received infrastructure upgrades that Wal-Mart strong-armed from local communities, lest it find a better offer elsewhere. The company adds a final dash of salt to the wound by repeatedly fighting (and mostly winning) property tax assessments on its stores.
The study finds that retail wages fell in every county examined with a Wal-Mart store, and that employee benefits were better in counties without Wal-Marts. Additionally, and perhaps most notably, the authors found that poverty rates were significantly higher in counties containing a Wal-Mart store. These findings seem to counter the authors’ assertion that Wal-Mart’s impact on local economies is minor.
This report is one of several dozen inquiries into Wal-Mart’s impact on local communities. Other such reports have examined Wal-Mart’s heavy reliance on public subsidies, the company’s influence on wages and stores’ damage to local ecosystems. Previous reports as well as scholarly papers and investigations can be found in our Research Center. More articles and reports on Wal-Mart’s negative impact on local economies can be found here.
Wal-Mart Has Minor Effect on Local Economy, Fed Says [Bloomberg News]
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, January 09 | 6 comments | Permalink
Connecticut Site Fight: Council Opposes Plan
SW council members oppose Wal-Mart plan [Journal Inquirer (Conn.)] 
SOUTH WINDSOR - Town Council members took turns Monday stating their disapproval of a plan to build a Wal-Mart superstore and a Sam’s Club.
Town Manager Matthew B. Galligan brought up Wal-Mart during the council’s meeting at Town Hall.
Representatives for the Simon Property Group have met with Galligan over several months about developing a Wal-Mart in a plaza just over the Manchester town line.
“South Windsor Towne Plaza” would be in the vicinity of Wheeler Street and Smith Street off Pleasant Valley Road, near the Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store.
The site would be near South Windsor’s Evergreen Walk development and Manchester’s Plaza at Buckland Hills.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Wednesday, January 09 | 1 comments | Permalink
Pennsylvania Site Fight: Town Board to Consider Rezoning Request
North Cornwall asked to consider anti-Wal-Mart rezoning [Patriot News (Pa.)]
An attorney for a group opposed to development along Cornwall Road has opened a new front against what the group calls “big box stores” along the road.
Attorney Dwight Yoder filed a request with the North Cornwall Twp., Lebanon County, Board of Supervisors Monday night to rezone about 90 acres along the road from commercial to office and institutional. The land Yoder wants rezoned would include the site where Wal-Mart wants to build a 230,000 acre super store and an area where another company, Springwood Development Partners, wants to build several stores including a Target and a Giant Food store.
The area in the zoning request includes most of the land rezoned commercial in 2003, a move that made plans by Wal-Mart and Springwood possible. Yoder’s request does not include land owned by Sheetz at Route 72 and Rocherty Road.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, January 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
View Wal-Mart Watch's videos on YouTube