|
Hadley, Rindge Reject Big
Box Stores
Hadley, Rindge
Reject Big Box Stores
Written by
Sprawl-Busters.com
Tuesday, 23 May
2006
When Greenfield
voters rejected Wal-Mart in 1993, they
were 10 years ahead of their time. When
Mayor Forgey embraces unlimited
Superstore Sprawl, she is 10 years
behind the times. In the past week and a
half, two more nearby towns have
rejected big boxes—one of them the very
symbol of Pioneer Valley sprawl.
It was as improbable as Great Burnham
wood coming to Dunsinance hill. But it
finally happened in Hadley,
Massachusetts, where voters at an annual
town meeting became the second Western
Massachusetts town in the past month to
put a cap on the size of retail stores.
East Longmeadow passed a 65,000 s.f. cap
by a 96% supermajority vote at town
meeting. Hadley, which over the past
twenty years has become the poster child
for big box sprawl along Route 9. This
roadway is the umbilical cord between
the two college towns of Amherst and
Northampton, and the “Hardly” Planning
Board never met a big box project it
didn’t like. But this past Monday,
residents indicated they’ve had enough.
Town Meeting voted 76% (139 to 45) in
favor of the 'Compatible Building Size
Bylaw.' The measure places a 75,000-s.f.
cap on retail building size, banning
more big box stores from cluttering
Route 9. The cap language is as follows:
“In all zoning districts the following
shall not be permitted: 1. any proposed
new structure or expansion of an
existing structure for retail use,
excluding the re-use or re-construction
of an existing structure, with a total
floor area exceeding 75,000 square feet
or 2. a group of contiguous or adjacent
stores, shops and similar retail or
commercial establishments with a
combined total footprint of all
buildings in the group exceeding 60,000
square feet.” “I think this is a great
day because the Wild West days of
development on Route 9 are over,” one
resident told the Hampshire Gazette.
Three big box projects now in the
pipeline say they will be
“grandfathered” in because they precede
the new ordinance: a Lowe's, a Home
Depot and a Wal-Mart Supercenter. David
Elvin, who worked on the size cap
ordinance, said “the time has come for
the town to set the agenda on
development.” Three years ago Hadley
voters approved a moratorium on big box
stores, but 17 years ago voters rejected
a size cap, and the Planning Board cited
that 1989 vote as the reason their hands
were tied to restrain large scale
development. As of this week, the Hadley
Planning Board has nowhere to hide.
Though Hadley residents in 2003 agreed
to a moratorium that capped the size of
all commercial structures, town
residents have never supported a
permanent cap. A similar measure brought
to Town Meeting in 1989 failed to get
the two-thirds majority that zoning
articles require.
Rindge, N.H. Wetlands & Size Sinks Home
Depot
They said a smaller “Home
Depot Lite” might have worked-—but not a
132,000 s.f. big box store. With that,
the Zoning Board in Rindge, New
Hampshire threw out a request from Home
Depot for a special exception and a
variance to build on nearly 18 acres of
land on Route 202.
The Zoning Board,
at an earlier meeting in May, had voted
to rescind Home Depot’s special
exception. The retailer had been given
approval last November to dredge and
fill 16,000 s.f. of wetlands. The Zoning
Board determined that a big box store
would lower the value of the surrounding
residential property, and that the
special exception was in conflict with
the spirit and intent of the town's
wetlands ordinance.
When Home Depot came back with a new
application for a special exception last
week, the Zoning Board tossed them out
on a 4 –1 vote. The town’s attorney told
the board that the new application was
identical to the special exception
request that was denied on May 11 and
should be denied for the same reasons,
according to the Monadnock Ledger. The
Board also refused to give Home Depot a
variance, because it would be contrary
to public interest, due to the size and
scope of the building proposed. “A Home
Depot Lite could be built in there no
problem,” one board member said. “I
think it’s the intensity of the use. I
think it’s a size 12 foot going into a
size 9 boot,” another member was quoted
as saying. The Ledger quoted one member
of the Zoning Board as commenting that
the Home Depot plan to fill in wetlands
did not comply with the town’s wetlands
ordinance. “They [town residents] don’t
want buildings on the wetlands,” he
said. “The town voted we should not
build on wetlands,” another member said.
“The wetlands are the kidneys of our
water system.”
So Home Depot takes a kidney punch in
Hew Hamsphire. Another Home Depot sinks
into the wetlands. Our local contact in
Rindge added this footnote: “We had our
second Town of Rindge new Master Plan
Meeting to see what kind of town the
people want in the next 10 to 20 years.
99% want a village nodule, rural type
planned-out town. It pays to fight for
what you believe in.”
Towns all around Greenfield are putting
caps on the size of stores: Agawam, East
Longmeadow, Hadley. Is Mayor Forgey
living in a sprawl-bubble? Will the
bubble pop too late to save Greenfield
from bookend sprawl on the east and west
ends of town?
All
Content © 2005 each author and
Greenfield Optimist
http://www.greenfieldoptimist.com/content/view/489/78/
|
