[Full disclosure: I am an active member of the organization Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, which has participated in opposition to WalMart’s (and Vermont developer JL Davis’s) plans to site a WalMart store on farmland in St. Albans Town. The case is currently on appeal in the courts.]
Sometimes you just get lucky.
A comment recently posted in the “Hippies From the 60’s” thread offered that rare opportunity for a truly “teachable moment.” The comment referenced a letter from Mike Hille, who apparently is the Regional Real Estate Manager for Target stores. Mr. Hille was responding to an inquiry from one Charles Root Jr. It is apparent from a quick Google search of Mr. Root’s blogposts, that he may have been “fishing” for confirmation of his own belief that Vermont is not business-friendly; but it is Mr. Hille’s response that is of interest here (note: this is verbatim):
Much of development in Vermont is met with great opposition and resistance for a number of reasons important to the community. Several key organized groups have been very successful crafting a gauntlet that new businesses and developments must go through, mandating requirements based on their ideas with very little room for discussion or alternative solutions. Having watched this from a distance, Target is of the position that compromising a successful business model or delivering a partial brand experience to our guest would be a disservice not only our shareholders, but our core guests within the community. These tight constraints have also created barriers to entry as it relates to costs. Many projects get tied up for years in legal battles, endless design requirements numerous mitigation fees and large construction costs. The cost of developing is comparable to developing in Boston with a fraction of the community to patronize the business generating sales.
Mr. Hille apparently belongs to the Half-Empty-Cup Club of which Governor Douglas is a charter member. Let’s examine more closely, some of Mr. Hille’s generalizations:
Much of development in Vermont is met with great opposition and resistance for a number of reasons important to the community.
Say what? I would first of all dispute the idea that MUCH is opposed. This is not factually supported in any way. And is Mr. Hille actually acknowledging that the community has good reasons for that opposition?
…a gauntlet that new businesses and developments must go through…
To the best of my knowledge, local permits are a requirement throughout most of the country. Target must be accustomed to that “gauntlet” already. In reality, only about 40% of all developments proposed in Vermont are required to undergo Act 250 review. Of those that are reviewed, 98% of them receive permits. That leaves roughly 1% of all permit applications that are unsuccessful. Seems like the odds favor developers, doesn’t it?
..mandating requirements based on their ideas with very little room for discussion or alternative solutions.
Again, not factually supported in any way. Speaking from my own experience in the single largest example of opposition to a project in Vermont, the St. Albans Walmart conflict; we have been consistently astonished at how unflinchingly the Walmart developers have remained rooted to a single location and scale of development since 1993, despite the fact that these are the two basic issues on which opposition has been based since the beginning; and that the Supreme Court of Vermont already ruled once against the proposal. We have discussed until we are blue, offering alternative solutions that would be appropriate and acceptable to the community so that Walmart could enter our local market unopposed.
As far as “mandating requirements…” is concerned, isn’t that the purpose of the permit process anywhere…to ensure that a community is planned to develop in an appropriate and sustainable manner? If this is not required in communities outside of Vermont, perhaps it’s about time it was. There might not be so many big vacant Walmarts littering the south and midwest if somebody had been “minding the store” in those communities. Does Target have a problem with that?
…compromising a successful business model or delivering a partial brand experience would be a disservice…
Translation: one size fits all and we can’t be bothered with what is right for your community.
Many projects get tied up for years in legal battles…
Not supported by the facts. Only a very few projects that have significant issues get tied up in legal battles. Parties objecting to any project are still at a distinct disadvantage under the law, so the issues have to be substantial in order to receive the kind of support necessary to pursue permit appeals.
…numerous mitigation fees.
You think Vermont demands mitigation fees?? How about North Whitehall, Pennsylvania? Target has stores in Pennsylvania, don’t they? According to the PA Morning Call, they know how to demand mitigation!
Check this out:
…the township wants Walmart to contribute $3 million to a traffic impact fund for road improvements…North Whitehall also wants the company to donate $250,000 to the emergency services long-term capital reserve fund and then $100,000 a year annually to that fund. The fund largely pays for equipment, Stahley said. The township also wants the superstore to pay $50,000 annually into an open space and recreation fund, which would be on top of the regular recreation fees imposed on developers. Walmart was asked to donate money to pay for the salary and benefits of one state trooper. If North Whitehall starts its own police force, the township wants the company to fund the hiring of one full-time and one part-time police officer.
Contrast that with the penny-ante that the City of St. Albans accepted from the developer, J.L. Davis. When all the “ifs” “ands” or “buts” are stripped away, they’ll be lucky if they net $200,000. total! Not much offset when you consider that the City’s own economic analysis revealed a potential loss of 40 tax-contributing businesses and a couple of hundred jobs from the city’s post-Walmart future.
…large construction costs.
Translation: We’re not interested in redeveloping in existing retail sectors of your town that have already been surrendered to concrete. That’s too expensive to reclaim for new retail. We want to do it the cheap, old-fashioned way, by digging-up the soft, yielding, open agricultural land and replacing it with acres of concrete. Cheap, fast and dirty…that’s the way we like it.
…The cost of developing is comparable to developing in Boston with a fraction of the community to patronize the business to generate sales.
Sorry about that, Target. We’re not Boston. So, let me get this straight now: we are at fault for not promptly giving the green flag to a big box store that is way too large to serve the needs of the surrounding community…and we are also at fault for not having a community that is large enough to generate the sales you’d expect in exchange for the honor of cheaply locating a concrete bunker the size of an airfield on a tract of prime agricultural soil?
And we’re supposed to be the ones who are unwilling to discuss alternatives? I’ll suggest the same alternative to you, Target, that we have suggested to Walmart for the past seventeen years: build a store proportionate to the needs of the population on previously developed land, and we’ll welcome you with open arms.
Hugs!
that Target had looked at downtown Barre (where there is a TON of square footage available) but apparently decided that they wouldn’t have room for a typically sprawling store in their usual model. Of course, other rumors have said that Target would NEVER come to VT because we don’t have the population density anywhere that stores in their model need to be successful. In either case, how on earth is VT “unfriendly” to Target because we’re a rural state with low population or because we have some small cities that would welcome a Target as long as it moved into existing retail space? And while cost/square foot may be cheaper with new construction, what about the savings in time and money when renovating an existing building already zoned for the activity and not needing all those supposedly burdensome permits? I swear, these people cannot reason from A to B.
I would congratulate Sue Prent on this post. What it really comes down to is whether the business community – be it in-state or an out-of-state mega-corporation – wants to work with the larger community to provide commercial opportunities that actually fit that larger community’s needs and not just the one-size template that was developed at Headquarters.
I would add that, despite all the whining that goes on from the 5th floor of the Pavilion building about taxes (that’s for another Comment) and regulation, VT is operating under essentially the same regulatory scheme that’s been in place for years, including the Dean years, when the economy seemed to be perking along pretty well.
That said, as someone who spent eight years in affordable housing, I have seen far too many instances where a small group of locals, fearful that “those people” will move nearby, or even inside the town borders, use the regulatory system to stall, if not prevent, much-needed housing development that is affordable to ordinary Vermonters. I know of one attorney who actually advertised his services to help people who wanted to stop “inappropriate housing” in their communities. More often than not, if opponents couldn’t stop a project, they could force it to be whittled down so far that affordability was undermined, since the developer (almost always a non-profit, such as a land trust) could not spread costs over enough units to keep the rents/purchase prices down.
I am totally in favor of encouraging, even requiring, development to be appropriate to our communities. But when that philosophy is used to, in essence, protect the ‘gated community” mindset that has become prevalent in Vermont, that’s wrong.
in response to one little comment, impressive. I do like how the snippets you have chosen only include the parts that help justify your cause. People, read the entire letter it’s really not that bad. As more and more business shutter locally eventually it won’t matter if a big box moves in because there will be no local business to compete with. In St.Albans for instance I drive past the main street only to see another going out of business sign in a window. The big box stores dont need to come in to kill local business, they are dying on their own. You can rant and rave about how this is caused by some outside force or whatever other curve you can throw at it but the fact still remains, especially in St.Albans, businesses are drying up, buildings are vacant, and there is no big box store around to blame.
Prove me wrong, but does it really matter?
Linking the issue of big box stores and affordable housing, I think that, regardless of the virtue of any single use of real estate, too much in one place creates problems. Too big a store, too many housing units of a particular type, too many chickens, cows, or pigs, too many parking spaces, all cause problems.
A variety of small stores intermixed with a variety of housing types and other businesses, intermixed with public spaces makes a liveable town. A few giant boxes surrounded by acres of pavement or all the low income people pushed off in a corner by themselves, not so much. 100,000 chickens packed together or thousands of cows or pigs in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation create an environmental nightmare. The cluttered McMansion developments up on Spear St. in Burlington blight the landscape. A thousand acres of celery or strawberries in a flat field in Oxnard California makes for a hellish agriblight.
Makes money, though. At least for a few big wigs. Efficiencies of scale, you know.
One link between the two and one major difference
The link? The more we rely on big-box/low-wage stores, the more we need affordable housing.
(BTW, I don’t know about Manchester, NH, mistermix, but the plagues you describe are not because housing is affordable, but because it’s poorly-managed.)
The difference? We need more affordable housing, a lot more. We don’t need more – if any – big boxes.