Lihu’e, HI. Wal-Mart Calls it Quits
Wal-Mart supercenter plans stall [Kauai Garden Island News]
The Kaua‘i County Planning Commission has denied Wal-Mart’s request to expand its Lihu‘e store into Hawai‘i’s first supercenter.
Wal-Mart says its expansion will provide a wider variety of foods and goods and at lower prices than are available on Kaua‘i today.
During a meeting at the Lihu’e Civic Center Tuesday, planning commissioners agreed with the county Planning Department’s conclusion that Wal-Mart had yet to meet all the conditions to expand its store from 120,000 to at least 185,000 square feet.
Those conditions include requiring a traffic study to outline the impact of any expanded Wal-Mart store on neighborhoods in Lihu‘e.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Concord, CA. Developer Withdraws Plans
Concord Wal-Mart plans fall through [Contra Costa Times (Calif.)]
After months of emotional debate and hand-wringing over whether the city should allow a 24-hour Wal-Mart store in North Concord, the developer has pulled the plug on the plan.
This is the retail giant’s third failure this year in Contra Costa County—Antioch rejected a Wal-Mart expansion earlier this year, and Hercules is using eminent domain to stop the store.The Winton Jones Development Co., which proposed the 28-acre Jones Ranch shopping center along Arnold Industrial Way, pulled the project by sending a letter to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
“Winton Jones Development Co. respectfully withdraws its application,” reads the four-line letter.
However, the company did ask that the application be withdrawn “without prejudice,” meaning the company could resubmit this or another plan in the future.
The City Council had planned to debate the merits of the shopping center, which also would have included a Lowe’s home improvement store and an In-N-Out Burger, on Tuesday night. But after reading the letter aloud to the crowded room, the council deemed the issue moot and said nothing about the project.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Bay Area Site Fight: Developer Deems Wal-Mart Not Worth the Effort
Wal-Mart Dealt Another Blow in Expansion Plans in Bay Area [NewsBlaze (Calif.)]
Wal-Mart suffered a major setback in its Bay Area expansion plans here Tuesday night when the Winton-Jones Development Company officially withdrew its application to build a Wal-Mart big box discount store in North Concord.
Concord residents applauded the decision to end the long-running Wal-Mart controversy, signaled by a 3-2 Concord City Council vote in March to reject the project’s Environmental Impact Report for significant inadequacies in the areas of traffic, public safety, urban decay, water control, energy and parking. Certification of the vote was delayed until Tuesday for procedural reasons.
“While No More on 4 is pleased with the outcome, the fight is still ongoing. Wal-Mart can come back tomorrow and propose another ill-conceived store. I doubt it will be the last we hear of Wal-Mart trying to build a store in North Concord,” said Gregg Davidson, chairman of No More on 4, a community group opposing the Wal-Mart project.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Suisin, CA. Residents Fight with Local Regulations
Residents Against Suisin Wal-Mart Cite Zoning Laws [KMAX-TV (West Sacramento, CA)]
Opponents of a proposed Wal-Mart superstore in Suisun City say they have the regulations necessary to keep the big box store from moving to their city.
The flight path of planes at Travis Air Force Base runs over the proposed site, making it a potentially dangerous location. They say that aircraft parts can fall off into that zone.
Current regulations allow only 300 people per acre in the area and opponents say 10,000 or more people could be in the area because of the store
Wal-Mart owns the land on highway 12 where they plan to build, but the city of Suisuin has the final say on whether or not they can build.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Yucca Valley, CA. We Don’t Need Another Wal-Mart
Reader’s letter: We don’t need another Wal-Mart [Hi-Desert Star (Calif.)]
In response to Karen Perry’s article on Aug. 22, she is right, we don’t need a Wal-Mart in this area. I don’t know why the city powers to be did not put it up to a vote of the people in the area like other cities did. Except for more money coming into the town. I know several people that do not want a Super Wal-Mart. We don’t need another grocery store, 16-bay service station and another bank. The Wal-Mart that we have is just fine. We don’t need this type of store taking over the whole town and putting other businesses out of business.
What we do need is more good restaurants, a Trader Joe’s, Target and maybe a Costco.
I was in the new Super Wal-Mart down in Rancho Mirage the other day to just see what it was like, and it was awful, way too big and things all over the floors. I could not find a thing I wanted or a sales clerk. The whole store was a mess. I swore that I would never go back into another Super Wal-Mart. I don’t like Wal-Mart the way they used the employees at such low wages. As it is I would keep going down the hill to do my shopping, I make fun day out of it.
Penny Wright
Yucca Valley
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Re-Uses Flawed Reporting Methods
In a report released today (PDF), Wal-Mart claimed that it saves families $2,500 a year. Citing generic drugs and in-store banking centers, the new report sings the “low prices” gospel, but it fails to take into account the hidden costs of having a Wal-Mart in town: higher taxes, lower average wages, and fewer local businesses.
In June of 2006, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report attacking the flawed methodology Global Insight used to calculate customers’ supposed savings. It is the very same methodology Global Insight used again in this year’s study. The “research” glosses over a whole host of problems the company creates, not to mention the fact that Global Insight - far from independent - was comissioned by Wal-Mart to conduct this study. Legitimate, independent reports not commissioned by Wal-Mart show that when the company comes to town, poverty levels go up, wages go down and small businesses go away.
From the report:
- A widely quoted figure from a study by the consulting firm Global Insight (GI) indicates that Wal-Mart’s expansion has resulted in $263 billion in savings to U.S. consumers. We find this to be implausible. The statistical analysis generating this highly influential result fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks.
- A robust set of research findings shows that Wal-Mart’s entry into local labor markets reduces the pay of workers in competing stores. This effect is greatest in the South, where Wal-Mart expansion has been greatest.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 31 comments | Permalink
Ontario, CA. Wal-Mart Puts Lipstick On A Pig
On January 20, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that residents in Ontario, California were organizing to fight a Home Depot project. Now they’ve got a second big box store wanting to get in. Ontario calls itself the “gateway to Southern California.” The city is located 35 miles east of Los Angeles, and has a population of roughly 173,000 people. Ontario says it has been one of southern California’s fastest-growing areas over the past 25 years. The city boasts that it has “superior convenience” within Southern California which “enables local businesses to capture taxable sales from residents of surrounding communities.” Ontario even has an official song, “Beautiful Ontario.” The resident customer base within a 10 mile radius is more than 800,000 people. The per capita taxable sales of $30,336 is the largest of the region’s cities of over 100,000 residents. So the city has been heavily retailed already.
According to the Daily Bulletin newspaper, residents of northwest Ontario have organized to do battle with a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter at Mountain Avenue and Fifth Street. The project was approved by the Ontario Planning Commission on August 30th. But several days ago, a group called the Ontario Mountain Village Association, together with resident John Logue, filed an appeal to overturn the Planning Board vote at the city council. The group is represented by Attorney Cory Briggs of San Diego. The appeal charges that Wal-Mart’s environmental impact report did not adequately describe the project and all of its environmental impacts, and was based on outdated or incorrect information and lacked sufficient evidence. The residents claim that the city did not come up with sufficient “findings” to show that the positives outweigh the negatives of the project. The proposal is also inconsistent with the city’s General Plan for land use. The group is challenging the development plan and the granting of a conditional use permit. The appeal also charges that the city has a financial interest in the project and the applicant, therefore any favorable decision would be a conflict of interest. Attorney Briggs has asked for a copy of all city records dealing with the Wal-Mart application. The citizen’s appeal is expected to be heard soon by the city council. “We think the severity of the traffic and air-quality impacts have been understated,” Briggs told the newspaper. “As bad as they were reported in the Environmental Impact Report, we think they’re even worse. They’re still trying to put lipstick on a pig.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
Muldoon, AK. Wal-Mart/Sam’s Club Moves Ahead
Plans for Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club in Muldoon approved by city [Anchorage Daily News]
Love it or hate it, Wal-Mart now has permission to build a new supercenter and a Sam’s Club in Muldoon.
The city planning commission on Monday Oapproved plans for the company to put the stores along DeBarr Road, just west of Fred Meyer. Construction is expected to begin next year.
The decision wasn’t easy, considering neighbors’ worries about the size of project, said commissioner Nancy Pease.
Pease added a requirement that Wal-Mart include more landscaping in the store parking lots. Still, she said, the design is a step in the right direction for big retail development in the city.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
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