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CITIZEN MINUTES

Littleton City Council Meeting – WalMart Rezone
January 23, 2007

Approximately 176 people were in attendance.

As a reminder, I try to use as many of the same words as the speaker used in an effort to be accurate.

Kevin Wrede, city staff, gave a report to council on the rezoning application. He mentioned “alcohol sales too.” (This is the first mention of alcohol sales and I really didn’t think I heard him correctly so I asked the person next to me and he heard the same thing!) He commented on the Planning Commission’s 4/3 vote on the application. He delivered 292 new pieces of correspondence on WalMart to council noting 265 were in support of the rezone and 32 against. In total there were 1314 in favor and 151 opposed.

Carolynne White, attorney for WalMart, gave the WalMart presentation. She said the 2004 BIAAC Report noted the sales tax leakage as a problem for Littleton and their recommendation to council to recruit a large format retailer. As a result the city council recommended the Santa Fe site for a large format retailer. When the “brokers” showed them the “package” WalMart agreed. (This is the first time I have heard that Littleton actively recruited WalMart.)

She talked about the new “green” WalMart efforts. Currently there are 2 experimental WalMart stores and one is in Aurora. The experimental stores have 100 components that qualify as “green” technology and each store has 3 different manufacturer’s versions of each of those 100 components. The stores will operate for 3 years and then results of each of the 300 components will be compared and the best performing ones will become the WalMart prototype. There are a dozen or more that are already proven and they will be incorporated into the new store.

Examples are:

light harvesting – a computer system that knows when to dim lights when they are not needed,
recycling the wasted heat from the refrigeration units for heating and cooling the building, and
the use of corn plastic rather than regular plastic for all WalMart brand products that are packaged in plastic.

She told the council that they only had to satisfy one condition for the rezoning to be supported and that the city council had already decided that the lot is suitable for a large format store. She clarified the question the council was being asked. The question before them is not whether this is the best site for WalMart, nor is the question whether or not WalMart is the best retailer for this site. She then reiterated her statement that city council had already made the determination that the site is suitable for a large format retail store.

Rebecca Kast was concerned about the wall and asked why it was built on the property line rather than have the buffer outside of the wall. White explained that it would be difficult to maintain the property on the outside of the wall in addition to the difficulties of policing a buffer concealed by a wall.

Conklin asked David Johnson to talk about the water quality pond. See the Planning Commission minutes – it was the same explanation.

John Ostermiller asked about the property on the North West corner which will eventually lead into the park area. WalMart will work with South Suburban when they know what South Suburban wants to do there.

Pat Cronenberger asked Jim Woods, city manager, to refresh her memory of the Open Space Task Force from 1996. Woods said there had been a focus to protect the park since the early 1990s. A buffer was desired to separate the anticipated commercial development along Santa Fe.

Kast asked for a roof façade on the back of the proposed building similar to the one on the front. She was told that the accommodations that were made to have the roof façade on the front of the building limited room on the roof top for equipment. A back façade just wouldn’t work. The architect told her that the site line studies from the path indicated that the view would be more of the 10’ wall than of the building since the path is 20’ below the building.

Doug Clark questioned the buffer on the north side of the proposed building. According to Clark the code states that there has to be a 50’ unobstructed buffer between them and the residential area. White said there was an 80’ buffer. Clark told her that unobstructed did not include parked cars or moving traffic. White asked him what standard he was quoting. Clark read from the document and White responded by said that it is adjacent to a right-of-way and not directly adjacent to a residential area. Then there was a short discussion about the street leading into Meadowbrook Trailer Home Park. It is a private street – it would become a public street with this proposal. So, Clark said, for this purpose it will become the right-of-way when you make the improvements and then you meet the code! (rather than meet the code first)

In addition Clark pointed out the code requirement of a 50’ buffer and 20% open space and in his estimation WalMart had the 50’ buffer but not the 20%. Fred Banfield, civil engineer representing WalMart, said he understood the buffer is allowed to be counted in the 20%. Clark read from their document that indicated the buffer was in addition to the 20%. Banfield said he would defer to the city attorney.

The 24/7 hours of operation mean 24/7 hours for delivery trucks. Kast thought the city had some time restrictions on noise. Cronenberger thought she must be thinking about construction noise. Ostermiller said they restrict the hours for trash pickup. Cronenberger said they had discussed trash pickup noise but the council had never done anything about it. Charlie Blosten worked with the trash company to work that problem.

Kast asked White, if you have trucks 24/7 how’s that going to work out? How are you going to mitigate the noise of truck deliveries?

White said in addition to the 10’ wall there will be dock walls and that their noise studies indicate that they meet the code. In fact, the noise from Santa Fe will likely be the predominant noise and that would mask the noise of WalMart.

Public Hearing

Jim Taylor told the audience that council only has a limited amount of time to hear from them and that they cannot cede their minutes to another party.

Dave Mitchell had a presentation that he was unable to deliver in its entirety due to time. He showed some graphs of Littleton and other municipalities in the area. The significance of his graphs showed that Littleton collects more in sales tax revenue than other cities – in Littleton the sales tax generated is $567 per residence and the average is $408. Littleton is doing a good job with sales tax revenue and sales tax leakage is a bad argument. We are a mobile population and the cost of chasing leakage will be something grotesque to look at everyday for years to come. He suggested that council needed to take a look at how they spend the city’s revenue because other cities are doing fine with less money.

Carl Zimmerman, former council member, said he was on council when they made it a park and the proposal from WalMart was not what they had envisioned.

Debbie Brinkman’s presentation follows.

Good Evening,

My name is Debbie Brinkman. I live in Wolhurst Landing. Wolhurst Landing consists of 189 town homes, 45 single family homes and a cluster of condominiums. I am speaking on behalf of over 200 of my Wolhurst neighbors who oppose this rezoning.

I’m here tonight to ask you to deny the rezoning application for this location.

This site is sandwiched between two low profile residential neighborhoods, a busy highway on the east and South Platte Park on the west. We do not want a huge cement monument to low prices built in the middle.

We also do not want a walking path through our property to the Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart states there are people in the Wolhurst who want it. We have 243 signatures from Wolhurst residents who do not want the walking path.

We have just had nine residents walk the icy, snow packed streets in below zero weather and have found one person who said that they wouldn’t mind it. Here are the signatures of 243 residents who are completely, entirely opposed.

We do not shopping carts littering our yards. We do not want people parking there when lots fill up over the holidays and we don’t want the run over of crime that will come from the Wal-Mart lot. Please do not ignore us as Wal-Mart continues to do. Please remove this pass through from the plan.

Wal-Mart is not a good fit for this area. According to Littleton’s Comprehensive Plan, a new development must preserve the character of its surroundings. Just because a building is painted in an earth-toned color palette, uses materials that represent rural themes and builds shopping cart collectors to look like split-rail fencing doesn’t mean it’s preserving the character of its surroundings.

There are twenty Wal-Marts in the area and none of them are shoe-horned between two established neighborhoods. A 24 – 7, aggressive retailer in this location is akin to a bull in a china shop. No one wants a semi-truck turn around outside their bedroom window. That‘s why Wal-Mart’s aren’t built within a few feet of resident’s backyards. Littleton would be the proud owner of the only Wal-Mart in the metropolitan area where the neighbor’s back doors are closer to Wal-Mart’s front door than the handicapped parking spaces.

No one should have to live with the constant hum of compressors and condensers, the constant banging and slamming of car doors, the continuous chatter of a parking lot and illumination that turns night into day all positioned within arms reach.

Wal-Mart’s are not built on top of neighborhoods and they are not dropped in next to parks and rivers. That is why we have laws because the travesty that would prevail is beyond what anyone should ever have to live next to.

One such law is the Littleton Noise Control Ordinance 7-3-5: Specific Prohibitions, Section E. Truck Loading Operations can only occur between the hours of 7 am and 10 pm when within 800 feet of a residential area. Wal-Mart made it clear that they will accept no restrictions on their delivery times. They said that was a deal breaker. So why are we here? We have a policy. We have an ordinance. We make everyone else abide by it. Wal-Mart has refused to so why are we continuing to entertain their application?

In a conversation with corporate managers at King Soopers I was informed that they receive no exceptions to the noise ordinance. In Littleton their stores are not within 800 feet of residential areas so they do not have curfews. However, in areas where there are curfews they abide by them and in some cases enact their own courtesy curfew due to their proximity to neighborhoods. Cities with curfews enforce them aggressively.

Would Littleton really consider changing the code for Wal-Mart? Would Littleton really disregard the property rights and quality of life of its citizens so Wal-Mart could have produce delivered at 2 am? What message does that send to all the businesses who abide by the noise curfew?

Wal-Mart should not get an exception. Wal-Mart is no different than every other retailer in Littleton when it comes to having to follow the rules. Or does 1.5 million dollars buy the exclusion?

No Wal-Mart in the metropolitan area sits elbow-to-elbow with a nature preserve. According to South Suburban Parks and Rec. I quote “…South Platte Park is officially closed sunset to sunrise. Given its preservation mission, this nocturnal closure provides wildlife an especially valuable undisturbed rest period…Migratory birds find the tranquility of the water of the SPP particularly attractive…If visitors, light and noise continually disturb these migratory birds they could potentially abandon their roosting areas in favor of quieter, darker locations.”

Wal-Mart’s experts can call the wildlife nuisance critters but I wouldn’t classify a great horned owl as nuisance, or a fox feeding her pups as a nuisance. If all this wildlife is such a nuisance why do we keep buying land to buffer them from development? You want to talk nuisance, put a Wal-Mart in and watch the pigeons and gulls flock to the parking lot.

Wal-Mart talks about an artificial wetland to handle run-off from the property. I worry about a company that requires an artificial wetland just to deal with their drainage. The wetland would be on city property and would be the responsibility of the city after built. Given Wal-Mart’s stellar performance on the environmental front I don’t think this is a very good deal for the city. Could this use of land be considered a subsidy? Does Littleton have a long history of this providing these allowances to corporations? This might not be a good time to start.

It’s undeniable that Wal-Mart’s leave a very large footprint on the landscape. Regardless of any design improvements intended to camouflage it, a Wal-Mart Supercenter is a behemoth operation that never closes.

This area of Littleton contains a gentle mix of open space, residential, commercial, retail, cultural, and businesses. A zoning change for a big box retailer would fail the residents, business owners and citizens who have toiled to establish the character and livability of this area.

The city’s very own Comp Plan states clearly in its Community-Wide Goals, page 7; “Preserve existing neighborhood values while encouraging any new development to make the most efficient use of land, resulting in the highest possible standard of living and the best use of natural resources.”

The rezoning of this property flies in the face of this goal. Residential property values will plummet – Wal-Mart has proven this repeatedly all across the country. Plus, you don’t achieve the highest possible standard of living by placing a big box next to neighborhoods, a river and a near grid-lock highway. You deplete and diminish quality of life.

Rebecca Kast, Mayor Pro-Tem and District 4 City Council member, has a wonderful quote on her web site. She states, “what we all love about Littleton is our wonderful quality of life: our attractive neighborhoods and good schools, our historic buildings, our cultural institutions, our open space and trail systems and our strong community spirit. I urge Littleton citizens to not take these things for granted. Get involved to be sure that what you love about Littleton is protected for the future.”

That’s why we’re here. That’s why we were there with the planning commission for three days into the wee hours, that’s why we have braved below zero temps, snow mounds and ice to go door to door to let the citizens know that we have to get involved and we have to protect Littleton for the future.

And that is why we all came tonight and why we’ll be here next week and the week after, if necessary. We want you to hear us and we want you to listen and we want you to deny the commercial zoning request that would place an obtrusive 24 -7 operation on a piece of land that is not appropriate.

Let’s plan this parcel in accordance with the personality, spirit, and quality of life that makes Littleton so special.