Christmas Eve brought good news to many concerned Franklin County residents, when it was announced in the St. Albans Messenger that Lowe’s will not, after all, be seeking a permit to build in St. Albans. Being a member of the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, I can’t help celebrating this as a victory for advocates of smart growth practices.
The merchandising giant had been seeking a preliminary decision from the St. Albans Town Development Review Board for a 122,000-sq. ft. retail facility to be located on open land behind the Price Chopper on Route 7 in St. Albans. The location of the project would have impacted both wetlands and prime agricultural soils. There were many reasons to challenge the project, including environmental and traffic issues, and the significant impact the store could reasonably be expected to have on the local economy where this retail sector’s customers already had many local businesses supplying their needs.
Even though the project had already secured a stormwater permit from the Agency of Natural Resources, an earlier permit application had been withdrawn in 2004 because of a moratorium established by the Town, temporarily limiting new store construction to 50,000-sq. ft. per project. After that moratorium was ultimately lifted, Lowe’s returned to the permit process, presenting economic arguments at a DRB hearing in September 2009. A second hearing to address traffic concerns was postponed several times before Thursday’s announcement that the project had been cancelled entirely.
According to the Messenger,
The company sent a one sentence letter to the town requesting withdrawal of its application to build…signed by Rob Jess, who declined comment, referring questions to the company’s public relations department, none of whom were available.
In the absence of an explanation, I can only speculate on the reason for this abrupt cancellation. At the September hearing, the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth had submitted a petition for interested party status that was immediately denied by the St. Albans Town DRB; however, an unrelated group of local opponents was rumored to have submitted a second petition for status that may have been under consideration by the DRB.
The project was to have been located in one of two areas designated by the Town Planning Commission and endorsed by the Northwest Regional Planning Commission as “growth centers” but never submitted to the State for formal approval. The two “designated growth centers” are located in largely undeveloped areas at Exit 19 and Exit 20 of I-89, but the traditional center of the Town is at St. Albans Bay. The first big box store to announce its intention to locate in the Exit 20 “growth center’ was the long contested JL Davis Walmart project. That project received Act 250 approval some time ago, but appeals of that permit by several entities, including the NWCRG, are still under consideration by the Environmental Court.
Whatever the reason for the Lowe’s cancellation, we can only hope that the Town will take this opportunity to step back long enough to consider whether transformation of farmland near exit 19 to big box retail is really the best use of the area’s resources.
From a construction perspective, let’s not overlook what’s happened on the last two Lowe’s projects in Essex and South Burlington. On both occasions, Lowe’s hired out-of-state general contractors, as well as a mixture of local and non-local subcontractors. Also on both occasions, two out-of-state subcontractors were caught exploiting undocumented workers. The first, in South Burlington, was Double A Construction (based in the Carolinas). The second, in Essex, was Kal-Vin Drywall (also does business under several other names; based in New Hampshire).
To my knowledge, neither Double A nor Kal-Vin were investigated or punished for breaking the law. Our United States Attorney, Attorney General and the Chittenden County State’s Attorney were well aware of the cases, but seemingly chose to ignore them. In all fairness, the fine for exploiting undocumented workers in Vermont is very low, but that still doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to blatant exploitation. The Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration did, however, fine Double A for misclassifying workers on the South Burlington job. Unfortunately, the laborers paid the ultimate price – deportation – while the businesses were unscathed.
National “big box” retailers often utilize contractors who are not from the state they’re building in. This is not beneficial to the local construction economy. Non-union, out-of-state contractors typically bring employees from their home state with them, or – even worse – import workers from outside the USA. If, as they claim, chain retailers are so good for the community, why aren’t they starting off on the right foot by employing responsible, law-abiding, local contractors who leverage Vermont’s workforce to build their stores? I haven’t heard this issue included with concerns about the environment, impact on downtowns, increased traffic, stormwater runoff, etc. It should be.
What a relief! I sure hate convenience being a new homeowner and all in St.Albans. Glad there will be that empty field to gaze at rather than a place to buy goods to improve my home. Sarcasm aside I really must beg the question of what the best use of the areas resource really should be? I see this constantly stating it is “not the best use of the area”. Then what is? Is it to be left as a field for eternity? I see an incredible amount of opposition for any new project that isn’t a small, local business but no new fresh ideas on how to help the ailing town of St.Albans. Coddle local business’ all you like but it will not stop people from going to Essex or Burlington Lowes to get what they need. I want to see this “smart growth” and the sooner the better because right now it seems more like “stubborn arguments”.