December 5, 2008

Wal-Mart hearing draws crowd of 100
Commission struggles to contain comments on store’s merit

By ELROY KING
of The Chronicle

     A four-hour hearing on a site plan review for a 150,000 square foot Wal-Mart building on property at the west end of town ended without any decision — in fact without any deliberation by the planning commission.
     The hearing, which drew an audience of more than 100 to the circuit courtroom in the Wasco County courthouse, brought forth lots of testimony from both proponents and opponents.
     That testimony included at least four requests — all from opponents — that the record be kept open for seven days for additional evidence to be submitted, at which time the applicants will have the chance to ask for another seven days to respond to any of that evidence.
     The commission chose to honor those requests — as they usually do — and the site review hearing was continued to the Dec. 18 meeting, and even then as Senior Planner Dick Gassman noted, “We may not be ready to make a decision.”
     The site plan review application fared a little better than the related — or not related, depending on which side was doing the talking — sub-division application for the same property.
     The hearing on that application to divide a single 67-acre lot into five lots, opened on Nov. 20. It was decided at the time to hold the record open for seven days and the applicant was given seven days for rebuttal. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, there was not enough time to do this in time for Thursday’s hearing, so that hearing, although on the agenda, was not held.
     In his staff report Gassman noted that some of the specific details of the site plan are not included in his staff report, but will be addressed later when a building permit is filed.
     At one point, Gassman said the Wal-Mart development is a commercial project in a commercial zone, something that is usually decided at the staff level. But, he said because of the high level of interest it was moved to the quadi-judicial hearing level.
     He said retail shopping centers are allowed as an outright use in commercial-light industrial zones and the issues the commission is looking at are now on details and conditions.
     The store proposed is about 150,000 square feet. In comparison, Home Depot is 100,000 square feet and the expanded Fred Meyer store is around 114,000 square feet, Gassman said.
     He said Wal-Mart proposes 745 parking spaces at the site, which is the maximum for the square footage of the building proposed.
     Other issues he addressed in his staff report included storm water runoff from the parking lot, which would run into an area in the northwest corner of the site.
     Gassman said the two applications have to be kept as two separate issues. He said some conditions blend together and some of the subdivision conditions apply to the site review plan, and again noted that the site review could move ahead without the subdivision taking place through lease of the lots involved.
     Opponents of the applications said the two issues are forever linked and one even suggested that they be combined into a single hearing.
     Three people representing the applicant, PacLand, were among the witnesses in favor of the project.
     Jeff Evans, a Portland attorney representing the applicant, said the applicant had gone beyond the minimum expected criteria and said the design of the building will fit in The Dalles. He admitted there are opponents to the project, but their opposition “is the same thing we’ve heard all over the state” adding that not liking Wal-Mart is not a criteria.
     Scott Franklin, a civil engineer for PacLand, also said the application exceeded requirements in many areas, parking and landscaping for example. He said Wal-Mart will be spending between $22 million and $26 million on the development including the building, site and off-site improvement.
     Christine Phillips, the project architect, showed slides of what the building might look like, saying it will not be built with one continual wall but broken up to look like separate components. It will also have lots of skylights. On sunny days they provide the interior lighting for the store.
     Then came a stream of witnesses from the audience, and although Chairman Dick Lavier cautioned the audience several times to stick to criteria (like or dislike of Wal Mart or other big stores is not a criteria), many of the comments were focused of the perceived advantage to having a Wal-Mart store in The Dalles.
     At one point, city attorney Gene Parker said some of these comments might fit in on the plan adding to the diversity of the economy of the community, so the comments were allowed to continue.
     One witness said it was one of the best changes to come to The Dalles and may lead to other development in that and other parts of town.
     Others said it would bring shoppers into The Dalles from other communities and from off I-84.
     One witness had lived Hood River when the Wal Mart store arrived there and felt it did not hurt small businesses in the town.
     One witness, Jeff Stiles, paraphrased an attorney in the O. J. Simpson murder trial by saying, “If the zoning fits, you must permit.”
     But most of the proponents said the project would be good for the city and would provided needed jobs and more competition.
     Opponents saw it differently.
     Some spoke of Wal-Mart’s alleged history of labor practices and its poor environmental record, and some literature on this was submitted to the hearing record.
     Lauren Goldberg, who lives in The Dalles but spoke as a representative of Columbia Riverkeepers, said the commission did not have enough information on such issues as traffic and environmental impacts, to make a decision.
     Two attorneys, Karl Anuta and Ken Helm, addressed the same concerns as they had at the subdivision hearing, saying the commission was relying on information from other entities to make their decisions on whether the application met some of the criteria. Both said they were also there representing a new group, Citizens for Responsible Development.
     Michael Leash, a local businessman, said there were 135 people signed up in that committee and they hope to raise that number to 1,000 or more. He also testified and submitted information suggesting that the site plan review does not address the Comprehensive Plan Economic Development Goals on diversity of the economic base of the community, encouraging the growth of existing employers and attracting new employers to The Dalles.
     An adverse impact on other businesses in town was raised in some of the opposition testimony, one saying small firms could not meet the Wal-Mart prices, another saying that other than the grocery items most of the products sold at Wal-Mart come from China and another saying that having a Wal-Mart here would just add to the “urban blight” and would mean more empty store fronts.
     Even the recent fatal incident at a Wal-Mart store in New York, where a store employee was killed when ran over by a horde of shoppers came up and that witness asked if “city police were trained in riot control?”
     In rebuttal, Evans noted that compliance with the comprehensive plan is not a criteria that the planning commission can consider. Social issues should not be part of a site plan review, he said. He agreed with calls for the record to be held open for seven days.
     He said that Wal-Mart is not getting any tax breaks on this project, will pay the cost of all of the needed infrastructure improvements, both those needed now and in the future. He also said the company has a history of helping causes in the communities where they have stores.
     Franklin said it might be years before some the traffic improvements are needed. A traffic light on the Exit 82 interchange might be needed soon after or even before the store opens, but before this can be done it has to meet federal warrants on traffic flow before it can be installed.
     They contended the the Chenowith Interchange is not being used now to its capacity.