05/05/2015
Posting this on behalf of the No Bel Air Walmart effort and Steve Tobia:
The below was sent in an e-mail on 3/31/15 to Nina Albert, Director of Community Relations for Wal-Mart as well as to: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; William.Wertz@walmart.
Ms. Albert,
The Bel Air community recently sent you and the Wal-Mart leadership numerous e-mails regarding opposition to your proposed store. They cited traffic congestion and safety as their primary concern and indicated that the majority of citizens were opposed to you building at the Plumtree site. To be exact, a polling of nearby neighborhoods indicates that 85% of the residents oppose your store. It was therefore surprising to see in your canned response to the community that Wal-Mart is “Pleased with the broad community support this proposal has received”. Ms. Albert, what rationale are you using to draw such a conclusion? It is apparent from your letter that you and your company are deaf to the voice and concerns of the community and have been since the Community Input Meeting held at Patterson Mill Middle/High School nearly three years ago.
In addition to ignoring our voice, it is now of equal concern that Wal-Mart representatives have spread misinformation to the public via your interview with the Aegis. The following ten points contradict your company’s feeble assertions.
1) Wal-Mart has consistently stated that their proposed Bel Air store would generate 10,000 car trips per day. That is an average figure and in fact on peak days, such as Saturdays, we can expect significantly more trips. Yet in your interview with the Aegis you now state the proposed store will only generate 8,800 trips per day. What study led you to this reduction? Regardless, in either case, Wal-Mart will generate a tremendous amount of traffic.
2) Wal-Mart is only required to mitigate their own traffic and not improve the grade of any intersections to a level higher than what currently exists. To say, “Wal-Mart is being asked to fix the sins of the world” as your attorney, Mr. Snee, indicates is totally false.
3) Wal-Mart indicates that Medstar and Evergreen apartments are only being required to make $900,000 in road improvements and that it is unfair that Wal-Mart has to do so much more. The combination of those projects will not generate near the traffic of a 189,000 square foot supercenter. Wal-Mart’s impact on the road system is much greater; therefore the cost of mitigation is also much greater. Planning and Zonings traffic improvements are based upon traffic volume, not upon how much a company wants or is willing to spend.
4) Per Mr. Snee, “Improving intersections that are an excessive distance from the site is not fair.” According to the Adequate Public Facility Ordinance, the traffic generated by a project needs to be mitigated by the developer regardless of how far away it is. The improvement Mr. Snee cites as unfair is at MacPhail Road which is 1.6 miles away from the proposed site and requires the addition of only 50 feet of asphalt to extend the west bound right turn lane. When Monmouth Meadows was being built, the developer was required to put in a traffic signal 2.2 miles away at Singer Road and RT 152, a much more costly construction. Why is it now unfair that Wal-Mart be required to make a lesser improvement at a lesser distance?
5) Wal-Mart noted that included in their “generous” $4 million worth of improvements is a road extension of Blue Spruce from Bel Air South Parkway to Plumtree Road. Who does your company think should be responsible for the construction of a road that would be built solely for the benefit of their store, the taxpayer?
6) You stated that the new store will generate almost $129,000 more in taxes for Harford County than the Constant Friendship store. There are 245,000 citizens in Harford County. That means the new store will provide an additional 53 cents per person per year in tax relief or about a penny per week for each citizen. That is a negligible amount compared to the traffic congestion and safety issues resulting from 10,000 car trips per day and the public service expense needed to accommodate it.
7) You mentioned the new store would employ 325 workers (Though in you most recent mailer you have upped that to 401?) and a Wal-Mart flyer indicated that would be approximately 100 more employees than the existing store. If Wal-Mart expanded the Constant Friendship store to include a grocery section, it too would employ significantly more workers.
8) Nina, two years ago you indicated Wal-Mart’s only option was to expand to the front of the Constant Friendship store and that is not possible. At that time, you were presented with a Wal-mart Drawing by their engineering firm CEI Engineering Associates that clearly shows a 30,000 square foot future expansion to the rear. To that you replied, “I was unaware of the provision for a rear expansion.” Now, two years later, you are still unaware of the rear expansion and still trying to emphasize how absurd a frontal expansion would be. That being said, it appears your company disagrees with you as it is currently expanding to the front of its Beavercreek, OH store. http://beavercreekrecord.com/2012/07/02/beavercreek-wal-mart-expansion-begins/
9) You mentioned in your interview that Wal-Mart was not invited to the traffic presentation held at the McFaul Center on March 15th. You are right. This presentation was open to the public and advertised on at least two occasions in the Aegis. No one received personal invites but many citizens and public officials attended. Perhaps your absence was a due to inattentiveness and lack of initiative.
10) You said that by building a new store, Wal-Mart is doing what is best for their customer. What you fail to mention is Wal-Mart is doing what is best for Wal-Mart’s purse strings, regardless of the hardship they place on the community by building a store the community does not want!
It is astounding to think that Wal-Mart, one of the richest companies in the world with an abundance of community relations and legal expertise, would make such a blatant attempt to mislead the public on so many rudimentary points. Your actions can only be construed as a flailing attempt to garner support from the scant minority who approve of your proposed store.
The long awaited expansion of the Beavercreek Wal-Mart has begun. Portions of the left side of the building, previously the tire center, have been demolished to make way for future construction. See photos for more details.
