Last Tuesday, March 20, our Planning and Zoning Commission failed to heed concerns regarding parking and traffic issues and voted 5 to 1 to move the WalMart expansion plan forward. It is now up to the Village Board of Trustees and the Zoning Board of Appeals whether or not WalMart and THF Realty destroy Cottonwood Mall, remove small businesses from our community and add to the traffic problems that already exist.
The Village Trustees and Mayor insist that it is not within their power to simply deny the proposal, as it meets all our existing Ordinances. If our Village Board were to deny the proposal, WalMart would have a legal basis to sue our Village.
But the WalMart expansion proposal does NOT meet our Ordinances. WalMart/THF have requested a variance for the parking lot. Do you know that the current WalMart store already has a variance that allows them to provide FEWER spaces than those required by our laws? And now they are requesting a further variance to provide an even lower percentage of the required parking spaces for their new SuperCenter.
Fewer spaces and more cars...
In addition, the traffic report submitted by Crawford, Bunte and Brammeier traffic engineering firm states that the increase in traffic will have minimal impact at any specific entrance. Really? That's amazing, since according to their own report the new SuperCenter will result in a net increase of 4,670 trips daily. An additional 4,670 trips in and out of Cottonwood per day will have minimal impact? This is the traffic report our Planning and Zoning commission used to make the decision to approve WalMart's site plan.
We are demanding that our Village require a FULL TRAFFIC IMPACT study before they even consider voting on the propsed expansion. Please call and email your Trustees and insist that a full traffic impact study be performed to insure the right decision is made for our community.
And the Zoning Board of Appeals can stop this fiasco in its tracks. The parking lot variance does NOT have to be approved! If the Board of Appeals fails to grant the variance, WalMart cannot expand and there is no legal recourse they can take. A business cannot force our community to lower their zoning practices and standards; these laws were established for the good of our citizens. All we need is for our Zoning Board of Appeals to uphold our communities standards and our town keeps out a SuperCenter that will destroy businesses and increase traffic hazards in our Village.
2 comments:
Perhaps the 4,670 additional trips to Wal-Mart will be offset by the fewer trips to Shop N Save, Schnucks, etc.
I had two ladies try and kidnap my daughters in my back yard. A big white van drove into my drive way in broad day light. Two ladies tried to demand my daughters to get into their van. I had only momentarily went into the house to change my son's diaper. Those memories, not long ago, still haunt me at times. I thought moving to a small town would be safer. Super sizing Walmart might bring in more strange people with dark backgrounds from all over the area, many cities will be driving here and through my neighborhood. It will feel even more unsafe.
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