Local perspectives

MIAMI BEACH

HOW TO AVOID BIG-BOX STORE ANGST

The tendency of big-box stores like Home Depot and Wal-Mart to follow their markets into new developments in older neighborhoods in coastal cities is creating anxiety in some neighborhoods. How do city officials satisfy the competing needs of residents and retailers? That's the question officials from West Palm Beach to Miami have faced or will face.

Residents concerned about an increase in traffic that the popular retailers attract often put up strong resistance to the stores. In Miami, for example, Coconut Grove residents said they will challenge the city's granting a Class II permit for a Home Depot to be built in the Grove Gate shopping center at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Bird Road. Also this week, Miami Beach commissioners yielded to Sunset Harbour residents' persistent objections to a Home Depot possibly coming to their mid-Beach neighborhood. The commission gave preliminary approval to a zoning ordinance that tightens rules for projects measuring 50,000-square feet or more in Sunset Harbour, which is located along Biscayne Bay north of 17th Street.

Sunset Harbour residents are thrilled, while the property owner who submitted an application seeking permission to build a large retail store on his land understandably is not at all pleased.

This classic confrontation between a property owner's rights and a neighborhood's concerns is hardly new. But as more large retailers are eyeing dense urban areas that they once shunned in favor of the suburbs, cities need to prepare better to deal with the controversies.

One suggestion: City planners should scout out and identify possible sites for big-box stores and put out feelers in neighborhood and civic associations to gauge residents' reactions in advance of any permit applications. Some neighborhoods are starved for commercial development and would welcome big retailers.

Also, more cities should encourage older neighborhoods on the verge of redevelopment to organize and write mini master plans for their area with the help of staff planners. Anticipating the arrival of new commercial development could help cities and residents avoid angst when Home Depot or Wal-Mart comes calling.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/14461202.htm