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February 05, 2007
Some Questions on Wal-Mart in Vallejo
Vallejoans for Responsible Growth would like to raise some urgent questions about Wal-Mart’s plans for a “supercenter” at Sonoma Boulevard and Redwood Street in Vallejo and its current stewardship of the site which is just one of several it seeks to cluster along the I-80 corridor – just 1.5 miles from Vallejo’s downtown, 3.5 miles from the one now going up in American Canyon, and right on the edge of the White Slough Lagoon, an environmentally sensitive arm of the Napa River.
In the wake of some bad visuals on TV last Friday night – five parked trailers, two RVs, and shoreline grasses strewn with old tires and other trash – Wal-Mart descended on the site Saturday morning…to start a long-overdue clean up and to put up an ugly chicken-wire fence to restrict public access and prying eyes, including TV cameras.
Our immediate questions are several. Why did it take public pressure and bad publicity to get Wal-Mart to do what it should have done months ago? Does Wal-Mart have a permit to put up such a fence? Is it legal, particularly in terms of restricting access to the shoreline? How can we and city code enforcement officials ensure that Wal-Mart has adequately cleaned up the shoreline they’ve allowed to be trashed? What did the down-at-the-heels state of this property that we called attention to say about Wal-Mart’s attitude toward our city and its citizens?
And there are larger questions that need to be addressed, the biggest being: Why is the City of Vallejo even considering a “supercenter” on this environmentally sensitive site which is protected by the White Slough Specific Plan approved in 1996 by the Vallejo City Council, the Solano County Board of Supervisors, the BCDC, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? Moreover, can the Vallejo City Council unilaterally modify this Plan without the consent of these other stakeholder agencies.
The current proposal – only revealed last September 22 – is a new iteration of Wal-Mart’s 2005 proposal for a 160,000 sq. ft. store at the same site. Even at that size, the planned big box was inconsistent with the protective zoning and design requirements of the White Slough Specific Plan which calls for multiple low density mixed use buildings with a maximum floor area ratio of 25 percent. Wal-Mart was told to come back with something more in keeping with the plan.
It came back last November 14 with something more than twice as large as what was earlier proposed – larger than anything it has attempted anywhere else in California – a huge, ugly two-story box of 393,000 sq. ft., a floor area ratio of 75 percent, and otherwise totally inconsistent with the White Slough Specific Plan. Even the City Manager and Planning Staff admitted would be “difficult, if not impossible” to reconcile with the White Slough Specific Plan.
In the face of all this, the City Council voted 4-3 to go ahead with a study of the Wal-Mart proposal, lumping an EIR and the Economic Impact Analysis required by the city’s 2005 big box ordinance with consideration of changes to the White Slough Specific Plan, thus greasing the skids for this abomination.
That leaves us with our final question: WHY?
Posted by Vicki at February 5, 2007 06:20 PM
Comments
hi vicki, i have lived in vallejo for a year and a half and i vehemently oppose a super walmart. what can i do? is there currently a petition? i am frustrated that there seems to be no organized voice against it. i live on florida and napa and i really want to see all the new devlopment focused on the downtown. can you let me know what i can do? thanks, julie bardenhagen
Posted by: julie at February 11, 2007 01:43 PM