It was almost a month ago that our beloved city council granted a zoning change "paving" the way to a west-end Big Box nirvana. The rules state that opponents have a month to file an appeal with the Ontario Municipal Board. Well, that month window closes on Monday. The big question is; Has LaSalle filed an appeal? Any other residents or organizations filed yet? I guess we'll find out Monday.But, in the meantime I thought I would pass along an article harvested from the London Free Press about some scrappy little Ontario town who apparently had the nerve to question Sprawl-Mart's motives and actually - GASP - turned down their application to build.
Yes, they are also going to the OMB, but this time it is Arkansas' Walton family who is on the offensive.
Because, what right does a piddly old municipality have to determine it's own future?
That's nice, eh? We finish off the article with a threat from the Sprawl-Mart lawyer basically saying that if you don't want to play with us, we'll skim all your retail bucks over your municipal border.
Stratford's plan to nix Wal-Mart bound for OMB
SmartCentres has launched itself once more into the breech as it tries to reverse Stratford's rejection of an east-end Wal-Mart store.
An appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board was filed this week to challenge Stratford city council's decision three weeks ago against rezoning industrial land into commercial land for a cluster of stores that would include a Wal-Mart.
"I don't think it's a big surprise" that the mall developer believes councillors erred in not heeding even their own consultants' studies, Alan Scully, lawyer for SmartCentres/Avonwood Shopping Centres, said yesterday.
The appeal is yet another act in the ongoing drama over the 22-acre site owned by Avonwood, near C.H. Meier Boulevard and Douro Street.
Council's decision came after years of debate and months of lobbying by groups for and against the development in the hometown of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Mainly, the public debate buzzed around the impact of Wal-Mart, which would be an 111,000-square-foot centrepiece of the development.
Traffic and retail-viability studies were conducted. Among them was a report that suggested the Festival City's downtown was healthy enough to survive and thrive with a big-box store in east Stratford.
"We had expected the zoning process in Stratford would take some time, that it is a very unique market and that the opening of Wal-Mart would be contentious," Scully said yesterday. But he said he was "somewhat surprised" by council's negative vote. "I'm not going to say I'm frustrated, but I am surprised."
Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson said the appeal was expected.
"Stratford has rendered a planning decision which we feel has represented the best public interests of the community," (ed: can we get this guy to move to Windsor?) he said. Mathieson said he has heard a month might have to be set aside for the hearing. He said money is set aside in each year's budget for planning processes, including possible OMB appeals.
Scully said he expects an OMB pre-hearing will take place within six months, with a full hearing "within the year." Stratford Mall has also appealed the same council decision, Mathieson said.
The lawyer representing that mall was not immediately available for comment.
SmartCentres, one of Canada's biggest retail developers, operates more than 185 shopping centres, including many big-box and national-brand stores.
Scully said "it certainly is an option" for SmartCentres to look at building just outside the city's easternmost boundaries.
Here's a word of advice to Windsor's city council: when the residents of the city of Guelph lost their 10 year old battle to keep Wal-Mart out of their community, their council paid the price at the next municipal election. One week after the Wal-Mart opened, Guelph voted in its civic election. Every candidate who supported Wal-Mart, including the mayor, was defeated.
Here's hoping that Stratford prevails and keeps this monstrosity from setting up shop. Apparently, they still have a town worth caring about.
8 comments:
I love every day low prices
I heart walmart
open market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
socialists/communists will never prevail not in this great nation.
Nice to see somewhere standing up against lower wages and crappier products.
I'm sure a quick scan of either Sprawl-mart parking lot in Windsor would reveal a whole buch of the "Out of a job yet?" bumper stickers.
But as long a sheepole have easy access to garbage products, all is well...
PS - Where can I get one of those stickers :)
I wanna know what the hell walmart is puting in the koolaid around here! Are there that may people in windsor that feel that adamant about cheap foreign products? Andrew made the connection that unfortunatly so many haven't - out of a job yet stickers in a sprawl mart parking lot! It doesnt take an einstein to figure this out. Our quality of life has become poorer as a result of sprawlmarts and most people are oblivious to that fact.
I used to live in Stratford and they were always against big-box type stores. Guess what? They have an outstanding downtown and small business community. I mean nothing compares to it unless you factor in T.O. or Montreal.
The city put all of their efforts into their downtown by fixing facades, creating mixed-used developments and by not tearing down their history; Instead, they embraced it!
I am sure people will say they have the Stratford Festival but that is only for part of the year. The rest of the year the citizens support their businesses. And they even have a mall to boot!
Compare that with the mentality of this administration and the citizens.
"Keep buying foreign" stickers, yada, yada, yada...Andrew is correct. Hypocrits and old-school thinking drive (should I say ruin?) this city.
It appears that I was ill-informed. After a telephone call to the city clerks department, it seems that city council will be voting in the by-law change at this evenings council meeting, then give their staff a week to get the notices out to the people on their mailing list, and then people will have 20 days to lodge their appeals.
So, we've ot some breathing room on this issue.
If anybody wants to help out with the appeal to the OMB, contact me offline at chris@scaledown.ca
So Canadian Tire, Zehrs Food Plus and Zellers are okay, but not Wal-Mart. What was that about Stratford being opposed to big-box retail? Amazing how people are selective when making a point.
Chris: On what planning grounds are you basing your appeal on? That the lands should remain residential? That there is no demand for commercial? That the roads have to be widened?
The 20 day appeal period starts from the day after Council approves the amending by-laws. The week of notice is included in the appeal period.
Vincent, we're still working on the logistics of an appeal at the moment. We're just a rag-tag bunch of part-timers here, and I don't want what we're building here to suffer just for a symbolic delay to a development that we (and many others) have deemed unsustainable and bad for our community.
Thanks for the heads-up with regards to the timing of launching an appeal. The woman at the City Clerks department told me otherwise, but it would be smart just to prepare for the shorter time frame.
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