Lawrence, NJ Wal-Mart Submits Third Plan For Review
Last night the Planning Board in Lawrence, New Jersey held a hearing about what the local newspaper described as a “controversial application” to build a Wal-Mart superstore on Spruce St., where two car dealerships used to be.
A group called LET’s (Lawrence/Ewing/Trenton) Stop Wal-Mart will be holding an informational picket line and rally, before the hearing. The Wal-Mart proposal is to build a 143,233 s.f. store on a 23.5-acre lot. The used-car dealerships would be razed to make way for the store. This latest proposal is the third version submitted by Wal-Mart since 2004, according to the Lawrence Ledger newspaper.
The Lawrence Planning Board sent the earlier plans back for further changes. Wal-Mart needs a stream buffer variance, because part of the proposed driveway, parking lot and loading area are within the 100-foot buffer zone for a stream. The site has the Shabakunk Creek bordering the property. Residents have been fighting this proposal since it first came to light in 2004.
“Wal-Mart was wrong for the area for three years and it is still wrong,” one Lawrence resident told the Ledger. “(The site) is an environmentally sensitive area. The people who live in Tiffany Woods (an adjacent residential development) won’t be able to get out because of the traffic.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, March 06 | 0 comments | Permalink
Maryland Comptroller To Change Policy On ‘REIT Rents’
From the Baltimore Sun:
State Comptroller Peter Franchot will join other states in changing a policy that’s costing Maryland “tens of millions” of dollars in taxes by allowing businesses to use investment trusts to deduct rent expenses.
“It’s an abuse that allows big companies to cheat on state taxes, and it’s wrong, so we’re going to begin to audit these companies,” Franchot said. “These practices are going to no longer be permitted, and we’re going to seek to level the playing field for all Maryland businesses.”
Franchot declined to name the companies he believes are involved. He is scheduled to formally announce the plan this morning.
In 2003, Wal-Mart, which has more than 50 stores in the state, transferred ownership of its Ellicott City store to a Delaware holding company. That set up a “captive rent” relationship, which allows the discount giant to pay rent to itself, then deduct those payments as a business expense from its taxable income in Maryland.
It was a largely ignored legal shelter until a Wall Street Journal article last month highlighted the practice, and its use in 24 other states, leading Franchot’s office to study the matter.
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Posted by Russ Fagaly on Tuesday, March 06 | 14 comments | Permalink
Ballston, NY. Wal-Mart, Landowner Lose Court Case To Build Supercenter
Ballston, NY. Wal-Mart, Landowner Lose Court Case To Build Supercenter
A New York state Supreme Court Judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Wal-Mart and landowners in Ballston, New York.
The landowner sued the town when local officials turned down their Wal-Mart supercenter proposal for land along routes 50 and 67.
The Albany Times-Union reports that Supreme Court Justice Frank. B. Williams ruled last Thursday that lawyers for the landowners never filed a petition against the town for failure to enact new zoning consistent with their plans for the big-box store. The landowners claimed that a “secret meeting” was held by the Town Council on May 15, 2006 to discuss the Wal-Mart supercenter.
During the trial, Wal-Mart’s lawyer submitted into evidence a copy of a page from Councilwoman Mary Beth Hynes’ personal schedule book, which had a meeting marked on that day. Wal-Mart said the page was given to them by an anonymous source. The Judge said such evidence was “unsubstantiated” and had no bearing in the ruling. The Judge said the landowners had no basis to sue the town, but that Wal-Mart did have a right to sue - however the time to bring a lawsuit forward had run out.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, March 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Shawnee, KS. Developer Offers Wal-Mart In Bait And Switch
It happens often, and its always painful to watch.
A developer sells homes in a housing subdivision, telling residents that the abutting land will just be used for a small scale retail project, some mixed uses perhaps, with an upscale look and feel. The homes get sold, and one day the residents learn that the land next to them is slated to be the future home of a Wal-Mart supercenter.
That’s what’s happening now in Shawnee, Kansas.
Sprawl-Busters received the following report this week from one of the homeowners in the Grey Oaks subdivision, which could be renamed “Grey Walls” now that the real plans have been revealed. Here is his report.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, March 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Transforms Its Distant Home Town
From Financial Times:
Tesco’s Hertfordshire home may be on its suppliers’ maps but it has a long way to go before it rivals the impact of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, on its own home town of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Wal-Mart’s home office is 1,300 miles from New York and more than 600 miles from Chicago; dauntingly remote even with daily flights to the North West Arkansas Regional Airport.
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Posted by Vasudha Desikan on Monday, March 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Caters to Cedar Hills, Utah
Wal-Mart redesigned to fit Cedar Hills [Deseret (Utah) Morning News ]
CEDAR HILLS — City Council and Planning Commission members met Tuesday to look at changes to the proposed Wal-Mart in Cedar Hills — and so far, they like what they see.
After a meeting last week during which planning commissioners essentially said they didn’t like the exterior design of the proposed 123,000-square-foot supercenter, the project’s architect, Mary Kell, regrouped and came back with some hand-sketched changes.
“This is the nicest Wal-Mart in Utah,” said Kell, who works for BSW International, an architecture and engineering firm. That also means the store probably won’t be the cheapest Wal-Mart has ever built in Utah, either. Kell’s sketches feature cupolas, canopies and concrete quoins with a slate roof and brick exterior.
The look is unusual for a Wal-Mart, and even Shell MacPherson of Pacland, the development company in charge of creating the project, said he was surprised Wal-Mart was willing to make the changes.
“This is really Wal-Mart’s way of reaching out to your community,” MacPherson told council and commission members on Tuesday. “I was quite shocked that they were willing to take a step beyond where we were ... Thursday night. They were telling us, ‘No more,’ so we’re happy to be here tonight to present this and say that they’re on board.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, March 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Mobile, Ala. Has Seen It All Before
Wal-Mart fight harkens back to 1990s restaurant battle [Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register]
Before there was the Airport Boulevard Wal-Mart fight, there was the Roadhouse Grill case.
Residents near the proposed steak house, also on Airport, repeatedly appealed their case in the 1990s, even winning a state Supreme Court decision saying that a rezoning was invalid because the developer changed his plans without adequate notice.
Despite the high-court victory, the opponents ultimately lost. The City Council agreed to the zoning needed for the restaurant in 1996—after it had been open for a month.
Now those fighting the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter a little farther west on Airport are calling on the ghosts of that previous zoning struggle to bolster their position, saying they too are victims of a zoning bait-and-switch.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, March 01 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s Big Tent meeting draws ire [Hernando (Fla.) Today]
Wal-Mart’s Big Tent meeting draws ire [Hernando (Fla.) Today]
Hundreds of residents from at least four subdivisions will gather under a big tent off Barclay Avenue next week to air their concerns about a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in the heart of their neighborhood.
They’ve been anticipating this meeting since January, when word got out the retail juggernaut planned to build a 185,000-square-foot combination grocery-department store on the east side of Barclay Avenue, between Suncoast Villa Apartments and the Publix-anchored Barclay Square.
But, after hearing the meeting will take place in a tent, on a tree-heavy site that is not build to accommodate traffic, many residents are even more irate and say it demonstrates contempt for neighbors.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous (and) I think it shows what their intentions are,” said Fred Maier, co-chairman of “United Communities Save our Neighborhood,” a 20-member committee set up by local homeowners’ associations to block the development of a Wal-Mart or any other “big box” store near their homes.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Thursday, March 01 | 0 comments | Permalink
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