Jefferson Hills, PA. City Council Rejects Rezoning For Wal-Mart
A project called “Jefferson Landing” will not be landing. In late June, the Planning Commission in Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania determined that an application for commercial rezoning that would pave the way for a Wal-Mart, needed more information. At its July 23rd meeting, the Commission voted 5-2 against rezoning the land. The City Council took up the matter on August 8th. Wal-Mart wanted 59 acres of land located in a business park zone changed to highway commercial. But the City Council voted 6-1 to deny the rezoning. According to the Pittsburg Post Gazette, the slam-dunking of Wal-Mart was met with cheers and applause by the roughly 150 people who turned out against the project. The developer, McHolme Builders, will not challenge the decision, its attorney said after the vote. The developer revealed that he is already in negotiations with a landowner in neighboring Clairton, Pennsylvania. The Jefferson Hills site and the Clairton location both present challenges to the developer, said the engineering firm working on the project. Now that he has been rejected in Jefferson Hills, the developer is saying he might not have built at the site---even if rezoning had been approved. The project would have included a 150,000 s.f. Wal-Mart, plus another 32,000 square-foot strip mall and three stand-alone businesses: a sit-down restaurant, a fast food restaurant, and a bank. But rather than seek land that was appropriately zoned, the developer assumed he could convince town officials to rezone the land.
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, August 17 | 0 comments | Permalink
New York Site Fight: Planning Board Set to OK Supercenter
Planning Board appears set to OK Wal-Mart supercenter project [The Buffalo News (New York)]
It may be October before the Wal-Mart supercenter project for the Lockport Mall site is approved, but it almost surely will be, Planning Board Chairman Richard Forsey said Tuesday.
At a work session, Leslie D. Senglaub, a Rochester attorney representing Wal-Mart, said all the retailer is requesting at the board’s formal meeting next Tuesday is an amendment to two sentences of the environmental impact report the board approved Dec. 28.
The changes would make it clear that Wal-Mart will be responsible for finding a new tenant for its existing Lockport store a quarter- mile south of the mall on South Transit Road. The Dec. 28 report reflects previous terms of the deal, under which the existing Wal- Mart was to have been swapped to General Growth Properties, which is selling most of the mall site to Wal-Mart.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
New York Site Fight: Residents Resist Wal-Mart
Residents Resist Wal-Mart in Northgate Plaza [WHAM-13, New York]
Wal-Mart is trying to convince Greece residents to OK a store planned for Northgate Plaza.
On Tuesday night, the company unveiled a revised design plan before a packed public meeting of the Greece Zoning and Planning boards.
Wal-Mart has already scaled back the size of the proposed superstore. The revised plan calls for a 146,000 square foot store and a new McDonald’s.
However, even the modifications are raising new concerns.
Resident Kevin Drake said, “Originally they said the trucks were only supposed to drive down English [Road] and now they say they’re going to get some trucks going down Dobson. That’s a big concern for me--I’m living right there and I know it’s a very small road and I just don’t think the road could handle it.”
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
New Hampshire Site Fight: Wal-Mart Hearing Delayed
Hearing on city’s rejection of new Wal-Mart superstore delayed [Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph]
Opening arguments in a lawsuit over the city’s rejection of a new Wal-Mart superstore on Amherst Street have been delayed.
Attorneys for the city and the owners of the Amherst Street property where Wal-Mart wants to build a 147,000-square-foot superstore were scheduled to debate the merits of the case today in Hillsborough County Superior Court.
But Judge Bernard Hampsey Jr. had to delay the hearing because of a scheduling conflict. A new hearing date has not yet been set but will be scheduled for sometime next week, said the court’s deputy clerk, Mike Scanlon.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Maine And South Carolina Take Opposite Approach With Big Box Stores
Big box stores. Threat to small town charm, or job creator that could attract tourists?
Should states force large retailers to conduct a study determining the store’s estimated impact on the community, which could ultimately lead to rejection of the development? Or should states provide tax breaks to specific retailers catering to that state’s tourism industry?
Maine and South Carolina have lined up on opposite ends of these questions. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the answers to each of these questions lies in the tourism industries of the respective states. Maine has its small towns gushing with local charm, which helps draw millions of visitors to the state and helped pass legislation requiring retailers to study the impact on the local community, environment, and other business. A negative impact means the development can be rejected. Meanwhile, South Carolina has begun chasing large-scale retail development. Over the last two years, the state legislature has passed tax breaks in an attempt to lure large outdoor retail establishments...with some interesting justifications. Anyone feel like visiting the new Cabela and its giant aquarium???
Maine, S.C. try different tacks with big boxes [Stateline.org]
Two states are taking vastly different approaches with “big box” retailers like Wal-Mart and Bass Pro Shops that want to expand within their borders. Maine: make life tougher for them. South Carolina: roll out the welcome mat.
Fearing that behemoth stores could destroy its small town charm, Maine became the first state to require that retailers who want to open a store larger than 75,000 square feet – approximately one and a half football fields – first conduct a study estimating the store’s impact on the local community, environment, and other businesses. If the proposed big box is found to have a harmful effect on the community, it can’t be built.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, August 14 | 0 comments | Permalink
Lancaster, MA: Why Don’t Wal-Mart Execs Live Near Superstores?
A local residents’ group in Lancaster, Massachusetts that has been battling Wal-Mart for more than a year, is asking why Wal-Mart executives don’t live anywhere near the 24 hour supercenters they push onto others?
Area residents upset by the prospect of a huge, 24 hour retail supercenter on Old Union Turnpike in Lancaster, applauded town selectmen recently for agreeing to ask Wal-Mart to place an evening curfew on the proposed store---but called Wal-Mart’s immediate rejection of the idea “corporate hypocrisy as big as their superstores.”
They say Wal-Mart officials don’t live with Wal-Marts in their backyard. “Wal-Mart has a double-standard,” explained Our Lancaster First member Paul Bermingham. “Their executives don’t live with 24 hour superstores on their block---but they want us to.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, August 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Greenfield, MA. Wal-Mart Developer Pulls Back Plans—For Now
A Connecticut developer, Louis J. Ceruzzi of Fairfield, has suddenly withdrawn his Notice of Intent (NOI) to build a 160,000 s.f. Wal-Mart in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on a site just across the street from where the giant retailer was defeated in 1993. That confrontation led to the founding of Sprawl-Busters. Fourteen years later, Wal-Mart is back---although the company has publicly made no commitment to the project. The NOI is a step in the process of getting approval for a project under the state’s Wetlands Protection Act. The developer must get local officials to approve their building plans, and to show minimal impact on the site’s more than 6 wetland areas. The problem for this project is that one of the wetlands lies where the developer wants to put the parking lot for the huge project—which is twice the size of any retail store in the town’s history. The town of Greenfield has a local wetlands by law that makes replication possible only as a last resort, putting the project in a legal swamp. To build the Wal-Mart, wetland 4 must be paved over, and replicated elsewhere on the site. But since replication is not allowed, the developer must try to get the town to ignore its own bylaw.
That may be easy to do, since the Conservation Commission is appointed by the Mayor, and the Mayor of Greenfield, the project’s biggest supporter, recently fired the chair of the Commission to clear the way for her own appointees. But the withdrawal yesterday of the NOI was simply a matter of maneuvering into position by the developer, because the new members appointed by the Mayor cannot vote on the project under state law, because they are arriving on the board in the middle of the case. When the Mayor canned the chair of the Commission, another member quit, leaving only 3 people in the Commission. The developer needed all three remaining votes for a NOI approval. To better the odds, and let the Mayor’s appointments start at the beginning, the developer simply pulled his plans “without prejudice,” and is expected to refile soon, ‘’These people will be back,” said Sprawl-Buster’s founder Al Norman. ‘’This is just a strategy the developer is using to get around a challenge it knew it would lose.’’ A couple of weeks ago, Norman requested in writing that the two newest members of the five-member commission excuse themselves from any discussions or votes concerning the project. The commission’s own rules and regulations state an ongoing issue should only be heard by members who have attended all portions of a wetlands hearing. He threatened that if the two new members voted, their votes would be contested. “A notice of intent requires three positive votes to be accepted,’’ said Norman. ‘’With only three original members sitting on the commission, I think everyone knew they wouldn’t get three positive votes and the issue would be dead.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, August 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
PENNSYLVANIA SITE FIGHT: SUSPICION OVER STABILIZATION PLAN
Wal-Mart reps unveil plans for stabilization [Sewickley (Penn.) Herald]
Al Norman has been fighting urban sprawl since Wal-Mart attempted to put a store in his small town in northern Massachusetts in 1993.
Residents of Greenfield, Mass., ultimately voted against changing zoning laws to allow a supercenter to move in. Now Norman wants other communities to be able to do the same.
“I felt other communities should have help going up against the wealthy developers and town officials,” said Norman, 60, speaking from his cell phone on a Boston street corner.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Friday, August 03 | 0 comments | Permalink
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