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Friday, 23 December 2005 07:38 |
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| Bryan Freeborn is sworn in as a member of Asheville City Council following his appointment on a 4-2 vote on a Bible held by his daughter Wild, while his wife Bridget and son Emmett observe.
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By STEPHANIE THOMAS
Four of the seven properties slated to become a part of the Wal-Mart Super Center in West Asheville are zoned for highway business, but the remaining three will likely be rezoned in order to accommodate the 27.5-acre retail store site, Allen Johnson, a civil engineer with Freeland and Kaufman, said during a community meeting at the West Asheville Community Center on Dec. 19.
?®It is extremely important that everyone understands the big picture of this project,?∆ Johnson explained to the crowd of nearly 100 people. ?®I want to make sure everyone in the room understands the review process. This is a process that??s been adopted by the city of Asheville, and we fall under what is called a conditional use permit.?∆
Johnson added that the city has reviewed the proposed project and that the technical review committee recommended it for approval. The next step will be consideration by the planning board, he noted.
?®Upon the plan being looked at by the planning board, the project would go in front of city council,?∆ Johnson stated, which could happen as soon as late January, or early February 2006.
The meeting involved members of the Wal-Mart development team, including Mike Bryant and James Voso, also civil engineers with Freeland and Kaufman; Albert Wong, an attorney representing Wal-Mart in the land negotiations; and Randy Brown, a Wal-Mart representative.
?®Wal-Mart felt it was extremely important to hear the voices of the citizens,?∆ Johnson continued. ?®Wal-Mart really wants to be a part of this community.?∆
He went on to explain some of the technical aspects concerning the future Wal-Mart location. Before opening the floor to questions and concerns from the citizens, Johnson requested that they stay ?®focused on the site, the site plan, the building elevations or anything relative to site issues such as traffic?∆ and not ?®Wal-Mart??s practices and policies.?∆
Local resident Grant Millen told the developers that ?®what we need to ask city council is to make a special adjustment to do an economic impact study.?∆
?®I can tell you that this will suck up a lot of potential small business,?∆ Millen noted. ?®I can also say that from experience, because my family was part of the economic redevelopment of Asheville that came from small businesses, that created more small business downtown. But, we were a hardware store, and when the Lowe??s that moved in West Asheville came in, it killed my family??s business. It killed other small hardware stores in Biltmore.?∆
He also pointed out Bryan Freeborn??s presence at the meeting, adding that ?®I hope he will be bringing up this idea of an economic impact study first, and that the traffic mitigation and environmental effects studies, put that way down at the bottom of the list. Let??s talk about what this is going to do the economic fabric of this community.?∆
Civil engineer James Voso told Millen that ?®there will be a forum for those issues,?∆ but that the purpose of meeting was to focus on more ?®technical?∆ elements of the proposed development, to which a man in the audience replied, ?®Yeah, they just want to talk about soft stuff, like traffic.?∆
A woman asked about traffic concerns, and whether the developers deal with ?®the interior of the site or just the highway.?∆
?®We deal primarily with the public access state or city-maintained roads,?∆ replied Mike Byant, one of the civil engineers. ?®If the interior access will have an impact on the public access, we certainly will consider that as well. For instance, you wouldn??t want an interior access point on that private road, where Lowe??s and Wal-Mart, the north access, to back up onto Smoky Park Highway.?∆
Another woman asked about Wal-Mart??s delivery trucks, noting that those at Lowe??s, which is located adjacent to the proposed site for the Super Center, ?®sit in the back, and they come in about two, three in the morning, turn up the music and wait for the doors to open.?∆
Voso explained that ?®this Wal-Mart prototype has two loading areas. When they are on the rear of the building,?∆ pointing to graphics displaying the layout for the store; when the woman asked him if the delivery hours would be limited to prevent neighborhood disruption, he replied that they would not.
?®I don??t believe that Wal-Mart will typically do that, where they will limit loading hours,?∆ Voso told the crowd. ?®Their loading distribution is a nationwide program, and they??ve got a set time that their trucks need to be in certain places, so typically that is not something that they will deal with.?∆
Meanwhile, another woman questioned the use of landscaping as a sound barrier between the store and the residential neighborhood to its rear.
?®Landscaping at the bottom of a 30 or 40-foot retaining wall does not solve it. That??s what they??ve got at Lowe??s right now,?∆ she said.
Johnson had referred to the landscaping earlier in the meeting, noting that ?®a 50-foot wide buffer?∆ is required along the north side of the site, and that the city has ?®strict guidelines?∆ concerning landscaping, requiring ?®one tree and two shrubs for every 1,500 square feet.?∆
When a man asked the developers about the height of this retaining wall, Voso explained its proportions in relation to the mobile home park that will be absorbed and become a part of the Wal-Mart site.
?®The existing mobile home park sits relatively high compared to the grade portion of the site,?∆ he explained. ?®Wal-Mart is going to sit, essentially, a little bit higher than what it??s graded out to now, but essentially there is about a 40-foot difference between us and most of the residential property.?∆
The man asked, ?®So, you??ve got a 50-foot bumper between the property and the wall, and then a 40-foot drop??∆
Voso replied that ?®yes, in some places,?∆ noting that some of the drop involves a retaining wall and a slope.
One of the most volatile topics addressed at the meeting concerned the mobile home park, the residents of which would be displaced pending the property??s sale.
?®The mobile home park is an affordable place to live,?∆ a man who lives in the park said. ?®What are you going to do for those people, because Asheville has made it real hard for older mobile homes to be moved,?∆ adding that many of the residents are on fixed incomes and are not financially able to relocate.
?®It is my understanding, and maybe we can get the attorney to come up and address it a little bit more, Wal-Mart??s purchase took that into account, took the relocation, the seller of that property has a process that he needs to go through and will go through in order to provide continuances for the relocation of those people.?∆
In response, a woman asked the developers if the owner of the property on which the mobile home park is located would be held accountable, while another attendee shouted, ?®Renters have no rights.?∆
Voso said he was not sure what the exact process would be for holding the landlord accountable, but Wong, an attorney for Wal-Mart, noted that his client was staying
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