GEORGIA SITE FIGHT: DOES THE COMMUNITY WANT A WAL-MART?
Wal-Mart foes get Duluth staff to delay appeal [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Wal-Mart’s date before Duluth’s Zoning Board of Appeals has been pushed back —- again.
This time though, it wasn’t at the behest of the retail giant, which last month got its June variance request deferred to July.
Instead, said a spokesman for the city’s Planning & Development Department, city staffers are reacting to pressure from outraged neighbors. They will recommend that the board of appeals consider the requests next month.
Wal-Mart plans to build a 176,305-square-foot Supercenter on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard at Sugarloaf Parkway. The site is ringed by dense subdivisions whose residents are concerned about the scale of the 27-acre development, and its effect on the area.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, July 18 | 0 comments | Permalink
GEORGIA SITE FIGHT: DOES THE COMMUNITY WANT A WAL-MART?
Do you want a Wal-Mart in your community? [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Just when you thought it was going to be a quiet summer, in comes Wal-Mart.
Nothing quiet as a community plans to build a Wal-Mart on Peachtree Industrial - a super Wal-Mart no less. People are all a flutter. “Not in my backyard,” they say. “We have two Wal-marts within an eight mile radius of us. Why do we need another one?”
To take pressure off the other two stores, Wal-Mart company spokesman Glen Wilkins repeatedly said, and meet the needs of customers who live here now and continue to move in every day.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, July 18 | 0 comments | Permalink
FLORIDA SITE FIGHT: READY FOR BATTLE
Wal-Mart builders ready for battle [Orlando Sentinel]
CLERMONT - Developers of Plaza Collina are hitting back in what could become an explosive legal fight over their plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter in south Lake County.
Last week, county commissioners agreed to ask the state Department of Community Affairs whether plans for the $140 million shopping center are substantially different from what the county approved in January 2006. They also suspended preliminary land grading around the northern part of the 142-acre site on State Road 50 near the Orange County line.
The development originally was proposed as a high-end shopping magnet with a mix of commercial, office and residential development.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Tuesday, July 17 | 0 comments | Permalink
Mary Esther, FL. Wal-Mart Rezoning Gets Slam-Dunked
The city of Mary Esther (pop. 4,200) is located in Northwest Florida, in between Fort Walton Beach and Hurlburt Field. The city is only 61 years old, and sits on 2.5 square miles of land. But it was big enough to catch Wal-Mart’s attention, and since it became public that the giant retailer wanted to locate there, the city has not been the same. On Monday, July 9th, the controversy of a supercenter in Mary Esther came to a head, when the city’s Local Planning Agency (LPA) took up the matter of rezoning land to allow a Wal-Mart to be built along Wright Parkway on Highway 98---on a site that straddled Mary Esther and Fort Walton. Brenda Hall, who has been battling this proposal, prepared the following report for Sprawl-Busters:
“Our city was designed as a bedroom community and has just under 1,700 households. We do have a vibrant commercial district situated in the city’s center. There is a larger Wal-Mart located just 2.3 miles away and Wal-Mart abandoned a store located just 1.2 miles from the proposed site about 7 years ago. That store was in a commercial district adjoining our city limits and our commercial district. Wal-Mart approached our city manager about the possibility of citing a new ‘super-store’ on a 10.6 acre piece of property that straddles both Mary Esther (residential zoning) and Ft. Walton Beach (commercial zoning). City officials allowed Wal-Mart to use city chambers to present their proposal to groups of residents.Quietly Wal-Mart held the first meeting with only a few residents on Kingston Court, who backed up to the property. The second citizen meeting was designed to be a ‘Sound’ side meeting, but by that time, the word had leaked, and the meeting was packed with opposition. We began a petition drive designed to fight not only this proposal, but any that did not fit the current zoning of the parcel. We attended that meeting in force and let the council know that the greater part of the citizens were opposed.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, July 17 | 0 comments | Permalink
GEORGIA SITE FIGHT: ‘AS A COMMUNITY, WE DON’T WANT WAL-MART’
Residents’ Wal-Mart fight heats up at Duluth meeting [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Boulevard.
Nearly 1,400 people have signed an online petition opposing the planned development, and opponents spoke out at a City Council meeting and community forum this week.
On Thursday night, nearly every one of 280 seats was packed in the Red Clay Theatre in downtown Duluth. People who couldn’t find a seat lined the walls. Red-shirted opponents with “No Wal-Mart” placards and signs lined the street before the meeting, drawing honks from passing cars.
Inside, Duluth residents who live closest to the proposed store, scheduled to open in 2009, peppered company spokesman Glen Wilkins with questions.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Monday, July 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Independent America: Life Without the Big Box
In 2005, two reporters set out to drive across America in search of Mom-and-Pop stores. Unlike those who have gone before them, this dynamic duo avoided Wal-Marts, chain hotels and side-of-the-road fast food joints in hopes of gaining a better understanding of how Small Town America is reacting to changing economic situations, and what people are doing about it.
From YouTube:
Visit http://www.independentamerica.net/ for more, and be sure to catch the movie on the Sundance Channel on July 30th.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Gulf Restoration Network on Cypress Mulch
Wal-Mart gained a lot of press after Hurricane Katrina for helping victims of the disaster but it seems that Wal-Mart’s commitment to the area was short-lived. The Gulf Restoration Network, a “network of environmental, social justice, and citizens’ groups and individuals committed to restoring the Gulf of Mexico to an ecologically and biologically sustainable condition,” recently released this video exposing the fact that Wal-Mart and others use old growth cypress forests for mulch. Those trees, the video points out, are not only crucial to the local ecosystem but also help protect the Gulf Coast from disasters like Katrina.
Despite the fact that CEO Lee Scott admits “Environmental loss threatens the health of the natural systems we depend on,” the company continues to sell mulch from old-growth forests. Visit http://healthygulf.org to take action.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 16 | 2 comments | Permalink
GEORGIA SITE FIGHT: LOOKING AT THE DETAILS
Heated public debate in Duluth over proposed Wal-Mart [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
lined the walls.
Duluth residents who live in the neighborhoods closest to the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on Peachtree Industrial, slated to open in 2009, were out in force to ask questions of company spokesman Glen Wilkins.
“Why do we need another Wal-Mart when we have two within 8 miles?” was a question that came up several times. To take pressure off the other two stores, Wilkins repeatedly said, and meet the needs of customers who live here now and continue to move in every day.
It was not an answer the crowd liked.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Friday, July 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
View Wal-Mart Watch's videos on YouTube