In a long string of community victories recently, Lawrence Township, New Jersey won a three and a half year battle with Wal-Mart. Let's Stop Wal-Mart lead a valiant fight against the retail giant, and with community members out in force, prevented the store from being built. Here's the story from The Times:
Reading the newspaper recently, one might conclude that Wal-Mart walked away from building a store on Spruce Street in Lawrence Township due to a change in strategy following the economic downturn (The Times, "Wal-Mart drops store plan -- Retail giant says Lawrence site no longer fits marketing strategy," Feb. 14). The Wal-Mart spin machine has indeed peddled this interpretation. The truth lies elsewhere.After a protracted 3 1/2-year battle to prevent the construction of a Wal-Mart on Spruce Street, the public triumphed. Goliath was run out of town. How was Let's Stop Wal-Mart, a volunteer group of regular citizens, able to succeed against the largest corporation in the world? Many people in the community got involved in ral lies and hearings. They leafleted, petitioned and held meetings. Young people, college students, trade unionists, environmentalists and senior citizens let their voices be heard and helped in many capacities, such as by writing letters to the editor of newspapers, contacting other organizations, calling friends, making signs and calling the press.
In battling one skirmish after another, we discovered that for all its paid experts, Wal-Mart came up short on adequate answers to seri ous problems.The Spruce Street site is contiguous to the Shabakunk Creek, an area prone to recurrent flooding. The creek is part of the Delaware River watershed and eventually becomes part of the river from which we take our drinking water. Non- point source pollution from thou sands of cars and toxic chemicals from store products would have further compromised the Shaba kunk.
Hoping to gain a big tax ratable, our elected township officials and planning board missed the fact that deteriorating property values caused by the presence of a Wal- Mart store in the area could result in a net loss of tax dollars while raising the cost of municipal services.
Local residents repeatedly expressed legitimate fears about traffic and cited the numerous acci dents that already occur in that busy corridor, yet Lawrence officials let Wal-Mart's interest trump public safety.
One must also call into question the legal advice paid for by Lawrence taxpayers. According to the planning board attorney's professional website, he "concentrates in the areas of real estate acquisition and development" as well as "representing planning and zoning boards." His company's big client is the New Jersey Builders Association. Lawrence Township's planning consultant's company has profited from megabuck projects at taxpayer expense such as Waterfront Park, the Roebling Complex, the $40 million Capitol Center Redevelopment Project, and the $1.2 billion Asbury Park Waterfront Redevelopment pork barrel.
Do such "experts" represent the public interest or the corporate interest? Why do so many municipalities pay them handsomely for their less-than-balanced viewpoint? Is it possible that so much overdevelopment has occurred despite the public's disapproval because local government experts are so often the same people representing developer interests? The attorney general should launch a statewide investigation into potential conflicts of interest among attorneys, planners and traffic consultants hired by municipalities and the developers.
As our fight to stop Wal-Mart continued, residents launched a "Living Wage" initiative to prevent "big box" stores from paying substandard wages without health benefits. The response to the "Living Wage" campaign was overwhelmingly positive. Approximately 1,200 signatures of registered Lawrence voters, more than the 10 percent required to put the initiative on the ballot for the November 2006 election, were col lected and certified by the township clerk. In a rather blatant case of the public interest being usurped by corporate interests, Lawrence rushed its attorney into court to prevent the referendum from appearing on the ballot. He then turned the case over to the Retail Merchants Association lawyer to argue. Lawrence voters were never able to vote on the ballot initiative.
The people repeatedly raised concerns about improper zoning for Wal-Mart. The area along Spruce street is zoned highway commercial (HC), not regional commercial (RC). Clearly, Wal- Mart is a destination regional one- stop shopping outlet and as such should be located only in an RC zone. The only such zone in Lawrence is out by the Quaker Bridge Mall. Even the stores located there do not rival Wal-Mart as a one-stop shopping destination. Why was this ignored by our township's professional advisors? Were they acting on behalf of the public's interest? Wal-Mart should have been in front of the zoning board, not the planning board.
It is a sad commentary on the state of our local government that it took a suit filed by Lawrence residents against Wal-Mart and the planning board to frighten away the "Beast of Bentonville." Clearly, Wal-Mart understood that Lawrence residents had a strong case. The counts against the Wal-Mart plan listed in the lawsuit drew on the very arguments made repeatedly to the planning board and town council to no avail. These included improper zoning, inadequate stormwater management, inadequate traffic studies, and the unwarranted granting of variances. Once the suit was filed in Superior Court, Wal-Mart realized that if it did not pull out, it would face more years of delay, with huge legal and consultant expenditures, and probably not succeed, as indeed a desti nation store is not permitted in an HC zone.
We now have a unique opportunity. With Wal-Mart gone, we must press our local and county governments to take appropriate measures to clean up the site, rip up the asphalt, revegetate the area around the creek and its flood plain and improve the watershed. If necessary, the government can use eminent domain to take control of the area around the creek, as it is important for the health and safety of the public to prevent future flooding and contamination. Just imagine a park-like setting around the Shabakunk with recreational facilities, perhaps a neighborhood movie house/arts center, a coffeehouse or restaurant, and a refurbished Farmer's Market.
We stopped Wal-Mart, and together we can create a plan to en hance the quality of life in south Lawrence and improve the watershed.
Posted by Taylor - March 18, 2008 02:54 PM - In Your Community