LandWatch Monterey County, along with our labor and small business allies, supported the Big Box Ordinance that the Salinas City Council voted 5-2 in favor of on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. After the ordinance was passed, Wal-Mart circulated petitions to referend the ordinance. The petitions were certified by the Monterey County Elections Department and on June 2, 2009, the City was to decide whether or not to rescind the Big Box Ordinance or schedule the referendum for a city-wide election.
During a press conference held on June 2nd, LandWatch interim executive director Amy White stood with representatives of the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council and the Coalition for Working Families in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. The group clarified that it continues to support the Big Box Ordinance passed by the city council in March, but they also acknowledged that members of the city council had valid reasons to consider repealing the Big Box Ordinance, in the aftermath of the referendum effort. (Holding an election would cost the city $230,000 during a time of severe financial crisis.)
A week earlier, the Coalition for Working Families, with the support of LandWatch and the Central Labor Council, provided a new draft ordinance to city staff. The new ordinance addresses large-scale retail stores, without banning any particular store formats, which was the primary complaint of those circulating the referendum petition. The new ordinance relating to large-scale retail stores includes the following provisions:
- Imposes a discretionary Conditional Use Permit (CUP) requirement for "large-scale retail stores" over 75,000 square feet (s.f.);
- The CUP triggers the requirement for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review process;
- The ordinance applies to new or expanded buildings, as well as to proposed changes in "land use classification" for existing stores over 75,000 s.f., defined as any change in ITE Trip Generation land use category or State Board of Equalization retail sales category.
- Imposes economic impact analysis requirement in addition to standard CUP and CEQA requirement, with additional provisions for public review and comment.
- Requires affirmative finding of "net benefit" by the Planning Commission (and by extension City Council on appeal) in order to be approved.
LandWatch and the other supporters of the new ordinance clarified during the press conference that this new ordinance is offered in good faith as a compromise intended to address the concerns raised by those who do not want to ban specific retail formats, while still protecting the city from the negative economic and environmental impacts of Super-stores.
Superstores which combine large grocery sections with general merchandise are dangerous for a city’s fiscal planning and represent bad land-use for two primary reasons: super stores cannibalize existing stores and create urban blight; also, most grocery items are non-taxable. In these challenging times, the City of Salinas needs to maximize the available floor space for taxable items to generate more revenue for the city.
Wal-Mart Corporation recently purchased the former Home Depot building located in the Harden Ranch Shopping Center. Wal-Mart and its supporters wanted the City Council to simply repeal the Big Box Ordinance and allow the Home Depot building to be converted into a superstore without further analysis or any additional discretionary act on the part of the city council. But a 4 – 3 majority of the council decided to rescind the Big Box ordinance and directed the staff to bring back the new ordinance submitted by LandWatch and its allies for consideration by the council. The council majority also stated that the new ordinance would give the city the necessary leverage to negotiate with Wal-Mart in an attempt to mitigate the negative environmental and economic impacts of a new superstore.
If you want to read the draft ordinance endorsed by LandWatch and provided to city staff, please click on the link below.
If you want to read about LandWatch’s involvement in the Big Box Ordinance or the LandWatch letter to the Planning Commission concerning that earlier ordinance, please click here.
Also, if you’d like to review analyses on how superstores can affect a city’s economic health, please click on the links below. These documents are not too large.
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