From Nina Albert, Walmart Director of Community Affairs:
While we will not be participating in person at tonight’s meeting, we are providing a brief summary of our position, below, with respect to the new store we are proposing to build at the southwest corner of Plumtree Road and Maryland Route 924.
Our new store will meet the needs of many in the community.
• Our plans to relocate our Abingdon store are based on customer input and our plans to better serve our customers. Our customers are looking for convenience, affordability and a shopping experience that we cannot provide at our current location.
• The new store will provide approximately 100 new jobs in an area where unemployment remains high and opportunities are limited.
• More than 2,500 area residents have signed petitions supporting our plans, a reflection of broad community support.
The County has appropriately designated the proposed site in Bel Air for our intended use. No zoning change is required. The site has been designated for our type of commercial activity for more than three decades.
We are addressing traffic impact as required by the County code.
• According to Harford County’s 2013 Annual Growth Report, the intent of the County Code is to “create a mechanism that requires proposed development to make appropriate and reasonable road improvements based on the proposed development’s impact to the road.”
• We have proposed $4 million worth of road improvements that we believe meet this requirement.
• We believe that it is not “appropriate and reasonable” to require that we make $6 million to $10 million worth of improvements to roads and intersections that are not close to our project site and would be only slightly affected by our store traffic.
We remain hopeful that we and the County can reach agreement through the usual administrative channels and that our project can move forward for the benefit of many in the community.
First, the zoning change has been in place only about 7 years. It was zoned residential before that. More specifically, it was zoned RR, or rural residential, further indicating what previous planners thought was appropriate for the area in the past. Second, and most important, anyone attending tonight’s meeting would have been shown clearly how ineffective that Wal-Mart’s proposed traffic “improvements” would be. Many of the proposed changes are not only contrary to long established and accepted traffic engineering principles and guidelines, but will also make an already horrendous traffic situation even worse. Not to mention posing a significant safety threat to pedestrians and students walking near and crossing Rt 924 and other roads in the area of the proposed store. A store of this magnitude does not belong in an area with large residential communities, schools, healthcare facilities, etc., nearby. An interesting presentation at the meeting identified how easily the existing location could be expanded to provide space larger than the proposed new store. This is based on concept plans previously developed by Wal-Mart. Obviously someone was thinking about this in the past.
With the traffic already being horrendous who pays to fix the current condition if Walmart pulls out?
I bet if it were a Cabela’s, you’d be there with a shovel helping dig the footers.
This press release is quite well worded. One can hardly tell that Walmart is asking for the taxpayers to pay for a portion of the road improvements Walmart is required by the County to make in order to mitigate the traffic generated by its presence.
Or the unbiased version: Walmart believes that their proposed $4 million worth of road improvements will meet the county requirement to make appropriate and reasonable road improvements based on the proposed development’s impact to the road.
Except the County and State don’t thinks. I believe they have the last word in this.
think so
Dagger Press, please call WalMart on this big “error”, claiming commercial zoning was in place for 30 years, and publish the correct info. Evergreen owned 4 parcels: commercial on the north side of 924 in that area, and residential on this parcel. Their request was originally to swap zoning categories: put residential north of 924, commercial on the south side. All this was during the last 2 comprehensive rezoning processes.
To commentor saying “WalMart believes….” about traffic solutions……see, there is the problem: WalMart can “believe” the sun rises in the west, but it still doesn’t make it so. Unbiased, independent traffic engineers agree that these bandaids proposed by WalMart will not, indeed, fix the already existing traffic problems, much less prevent the additional problems created by a big box store in that area.
Walmart already has the approval. Why are you people still wasting our tax dollars fighting a lost cause.
And rightly so. If their use applys to the CURRENT zoning, W.T.F. difference does it make how long it has!
Like “none” said, stop wasting our tax dollars (and your own time) fighting this lost cause.
At best, you losers will only delay the inevitible.
Walmart doesn’t have approval yet. It must address the traffic mitigation requirements of the adequate facilities law. At present, it is the party wasting taxpayer time and money by attempting to get out from under the requirements of our laws and regulations.
You are correct, however, in that if Walmart would just go with the process and do what is required of everyone else, then it would have its store and the conversation would end.
Walmart doesn’t have approval yet because they can’t get their traffic analysis approved. And Walmart hasn’t purchased the property yet because it is a contingent contract based on all approvals (which they don’t have). Thanks for the misinformation though.
5-1 “Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.” ? Brandon Sanderson
The Walmart people conveniently refused to attend this meeting and therefore had not the advantage of hearing the truth about traffic studies. They submitted a fictional traffic study that glossed over laws and requirements that make it pretty clear that there is not any possibility to meet Maryland law concerning traffic mitigation. They are required to mitigate traffic infrastructure to a level A flow (it is now level E without their store).
In the letter issued by Jason Ridgeway, Director of Highway Development, Office of the Maryland State Highway, There were sixteen major misstatements or mistakes in the Walmart traffic study that caused it to be rejected by both the County and the State. Ms. Albert would know this if she had bothered to attend our meeting. BTW, Ms. Albert, how was it that not ONE of those supposed supporters attended this community meeting?
Their 186,564 sq ft footprint of floor space alone will cover 4.21 acres of space, or the size of not 1, not 3, not 5 nor even 10 but 12.6 football fields (just picture the Festival parking lot— it will be larger than that), and will generate, according to the latest Walmart study, an additional 16,000 cars a day as well as hundreds of tractor trailers, onto our already overburdened roads.
The Maryland Traffic Signal Spacing Guidelines state that there shall be 1900’ between signals. There isn’t that much space available on either Plumbtree, Emmorton Road or Bel Air South Parkway. So a signal won’t happen unless they can stretch roads. This would further degrade traffic flow and cause those roads to become killing fields of cars and trucks for our community (where you do not live.)
The questionnaire Walmart based its 2,500 signatures on misstated the question. They asked, when the Constant Friendship store closes, would you be in favor of a super store with groceries in Bel Air? They did not even consider their ability of expanding their store to 200,000 sq ft on land readily available to them where $59,000,000 in road improvements has already been completed.
Their claim of 100 new jobs does not consider the loss of jobs at Constant Friendship and it will result in just a transfer from one site to another. Moreover, each Walmart store costs the community some $900,000 in taxes for social safety net services for their employees due to low wages and minimum benefits. So she is asking us to provide corporate welfare of almost a million a year to the wealthiest company in the world.
She may think “…that it is not ‘appropriate and reasonable’ to require that we make $6 million to $10 million worth of improvements to roads and intersections…” but that is the law and they will need to meet it, period. Our County Executive Glassman, State Senator Cassily, State Delegate McComas and the SHA were adamant on that point and I believe them. We, who live here, do not want you.
1600 Additional cars per day? Wow that’s a whole lot of cars.
opps I meant 16,000 sorry.
If cars are going to increase by 16,000 and each one of those spends on average 50 bucks at the store we are talking about a store with sales in excess of $290,000,000.00. One would think an investment of $10 million in the road system would be a wise investment and a drop in the bucket.
Come on Walmart stop crying those crocodile tears
Point is still valid, but cut your number in half.
The figures are for “trips” not cars. Each car makes two trips, in and then out, so 16k trips would be 8k cars (x$50).
Both sides have been abusing that language to their benefit at times.
Noble not meaning to doubt you but the quote is
according to the latest Walmart study, an additional 16,000 cars a day as well as hundreds of tractor trailers
16,000 cars are 16,000 cars not matter what ;language you speak.
In fairness it’s a bit of semantics. Whether the car comes or goes, it’s still there. But it’s also the same car coming out that went in so you shouldn’t count it as two cars.
Bottom line doesn’t change. We’ve got a projection of somewhere between 5-10,000 “cars” as a result of the project, at the least.
Proponents will tell you that many of those cars already drive on those roads, as people will inevitably stop there on the way home from work, or stop shopping at Kleins and go to WM.. so it’s not necessarily a pure “increase” in traffic.
But that’s an assumption.
What we do know, is we’re talking about roughly 10,000 cars going through intersections that currently carry between 10 and 30k cars per day already, so that is a MASSIVE increase in traffic no matter how you slice and dice it.
I just read an Aegis article where Steve Tobia is quoting an unnamed traffic engineer clearly saying up to 16,000 car trips during peak days or times.
Holy moley imaging 16,000 cars all during a peak time, where are all those cars going to park?
Remember 16000 car trips per DAY is 8000 cars, spread out over 24 hours, comes to 333 cars per hour average– obviously traffic does not operate on averages, so let’s say 50 cars overnight hours and 500-600 during day hours.
Probably looking at parking roughly 1000 cars there at a peak time.
I forget off hand how many spots they put in their plan, but this seems like a good place to mention that they asked for a waiver from the county to have less spots than required.
Also keep in mind that means the parking lot will be cramped and the spaces will be tiny to cram everyone in– your doors will get dinged.
This would further degrade traffic flow and cause those roads to become killing fields of cars and trucks for our community -GAmbridge 5-1-15
Killing fields because Walley world makes people drive like crazy maniacs….
Thanks for the morning laugh and most likely the dumbest post on the subject.
Did you miss this: “Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.” ? Brandon Sanderson
There’s not much of relevance to respond to in this propaganda sheet, but just a few things:
• The new store will provide approximately 100 new jobs in an area where unemployment remains high and opportunities are limited.
So… okay Walmart has just called Bel Air South an area where unemployment is high and opportunities are limited. Compared to what? Silicon Valley? This argument MIGHT actually make a modicum of sense if you were proposing to build a new store in the area– which you aren’t. You’re moving a store– from a location with arguable MORE unemployment and limited opportunities than where you’re going to! This is pure boilerplate material. Nina just cut and pasted this from her previous 500 “must assuage the locals” press releases. Argue facts, sure, but the argument itself is completely illogical and I’m offended you pass this off to the community.
• We have proposed $4 million worth of road improvements that we believe meet this requirement.
• We believe that it is not “appropriate and reasonable” to require that we make $6 million to $10 million worth of improvements to roads and intersections that are not close to our project site and would be only slightly affected by our store traffic.
These statements hold no merit simply because your traffic study is garbage for the following reasons:
1. The study is conducted by a firm you select and pay for
2. The study has been roundly criticized by more than one qualified professional
3. The traffic figures in the study are calculated using a “big box” or department store code to estimate the daily traffic from your project. On the face of it that seems logical. But it’s NOT, because there is also a code in the engineer’s manual for a “grocery store”, and if you use that code the traffic figures increase substantially. Yet, your “big box” store contains a “full grocery” store as is your main purpose for relocating. So how could your store generate less traffic than any other standard grocery store? It can’t. You’re lying to us.
4. Every step in this process, Walmart has demonstrated a lack of good faith with this community. Way back in 2011 when the rumors started, you floated a story about your deed at Constant Friendship preventing you from having groceries there. Lo and behold, that end up NOT true. Then the grocery store in question– Weiss— closed, and that argument lost all credibility anyway. So then the story was there wasn’t enough space at CF. Then drawings appeared from Walmart itself, that showed it was possible. So then you just didn’t “want” to do it. Then you said you were going to comply with all the county requirements, but when the plan was submitted you asked for “Variances” on the number of parking spots and the reforestation plan. Then, in a meeting with community members, your engineers were asked point-blank, why couldn’t you put a right-in-right-out at Bright Oaks Drive instead of a traffic signal? The answer was that the project was impossible with a right-in right-out. I was there, your people looked me in the eye and said that. Then, lo and behold, magically in January your new plan made it possible!
Every step in this process Walmart has been less than truthful, mistaken, or out right lied to people in the community it wants to be a part of– so why now should we believe anything you say about your study and mitigations?
This isn’t about Walmart being evil, or about the opposition to the project, this is about the people of the county having the wool pulled over their eyes. People need to wake up and pay attention to what’s happening around them.
Walmart is doing it, so has nearly every other project around us, but we were asleep at the wheel.
Tell us more about the drawings found to enlarge the current store.
Contact the Bel Air South Community Foundation who acquired and publicized those plans, or go to one of their meetings. They can tell you everything you want to know.
I don’t have copies but have seen them publicized a handful of times. Basically they demonstrate that there is enough land around the current store to make up the difference in square feet at the new store.
Woh do I contact the Bel Air South Community Foundation ?
communityinfo@bascf org
Google is your friend.
Onward walmart, can’t wait to see State subsidized walmart employees peddling their fineries that were made in Chinese sweatshops by people earning pennies per hour. I guess that “made in usa” motto that Sam Walton pushed for years died right along with him. I hope the Maryland walmarts get unionized.so walmart will close them too.
don’t ALL the stores, from target to kohls to lowes to home depot to best buy to home depot sell crap from China?
Why do you think Wal Mart wants out of its current location. Who wants a store right in the middle of your competition when you can have one in the middle of your customer base.
Some one told me the store is going to be bigger than Harford Mall? Is that true?
Not the actual store foot print, no. The store is around 180,000 sq ft. Harford Mall is around 500,000 sq ft.
I think this rumor started when someone noticed that the entire parcel is about that large. Walmart’s parking lot alone is about the size of the store, so that gets you to 370,000 sq ft
Plus there are the other stores and restaurants and whatever that will also be built on the adjoining properties. Those probably comprise at least another 100,000 sq ft.
That’s another component that people often forget however. No, Walmart isn’t responsible for the other business that will come into their new shopping center, but after all the roads are “fixed” how in the world are the other businesses and all their traffic supposed to fit in there? How could the roads be improved any more?
I herd there were some historic artifacts found on the property that’s are being kept under wraps.
Hoping that they “and the county can reach an agreement through the usual administative channels” sounds like an implied threat to ram this throgh the court system if necessary. I think they want to keep the CF location open while building the new one to avoid losing the months of business they would if they closed and rebuilt at the current CF location. How much do they rake in per day?
Maybe all the folks complaining should have looked at the traffic created by all the development being built on every possible spot. Wasn’t the new 24 supposed to have no traffic lights? Maybe someone could have looked at the traffic problems created by Home Depot or Target or the Festival or Constant Friendship or …….. too much too little too late.
Under many prior administrations going back decades, Harford County got the well-earned reputation of being totally in bed with developers. Wally World’s people knew this well and merely wanted to sneak in this store approval while the masses would supposedly be asleep.
There is NO way in Hell that the traffic nightmare could be alleviated under the Walmart fake plan. How do people think that the Walton’s got so rich? Answer” Browbeating local jurisdictions to get approved, crowing about all the jobs they would create (NOT,) and paying their employees small money.
Let’s face reality here. The company flat out lied when it stated that an expansion of Constant Friendship store to now include groceries “was not possible” based on leasehold restrictions. They lied pure and simple. Their ‘traffic studies’ are fraudulent.
Take a trip down 924 any day at anytime and get the drift of the fact that it is now just as congested and hazardous as it was before Rt. 24 was built. Rush hour? Forget it. County approval of this new store would impose a congestion, light pollution, and noise/nuisance clusterphuck on everyone living or traveling in this area.
Harford County already has an overabundance of low-skill low pay ‘warehouse’ jobs and Walmart is hardly above that level. Walmart wages do not rise to the level of which anyone can rightfully call generous and the vast majority of so-called “new” jobs would end up being employees transferred from CF to the proposed Plumtree store. Another Walmart lie about ‘new jobs.’ You can bet that the “labor line” of expenses would be a main area that the Manager would be minimizing to control expenses to the corporate office’s satisfaction. Those transferring employees would end up working even harder (not on overtime, either) and the number of real “new” hires would be very minimal and PART-time at best. I know how this retail GAME is played from the inside.
A lotta allegations without 1 shred of evidence. Gary is that you?
Just heard that land clearing for the project will start sometime soon.
Not hard to figure out. The price of Gary’s house plunged yesterday.
But the good news is that Linda’s trailer has gone up.
It is great news to hear that.Walmart finally conceded the point on the adequate public facilities requirements. All that appears to stand in the way is how fast they can amend their traffic analysis, get approval for the changes, and to start construction.
I’m surprised to hear that they caved so quickly.
I’m surprised they didn’t cave sooner. Their core customers in belair south need their walmart fix. The Haron Dahan estate and Bar-Ilan University thank Harford county for your money. Now if someone would just buy that ugly building in Hickory.
Shalom
Pretty amazing claim since they don’t own the property yet and the sale is contingent on getting an approval.
Walmart is NOT a done deal. Get involved. Write to your reps, SHA and make your voice heard. Here are a few of the points Walmart has provided false information to the public. In addition, there are many other points that make Walmart’s plans misleading. For example, their traffic study is able to achieve certain acceptable ratings at intersections by not allowing any time between light changes, not even a few seconds. Their traffic plans submitted might improve access to their store while creating undue hardship on other stores in the immediate area by causing gridlock, including all the stores in Festival Bel Air. They have yet to address flaws in the actual plans submitted for the building itself as well. They did not include the garden center space in their plans which would require more parking according to code. They are already below code and want the county to look the other way rather than require a variance which would need to be approved by citizens.
Posting this on behalf of Steve Tobia, No Bel Air Warmart initiative:
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: countyexecutive@harfordcountymd.gov; Delegate.S.McComas@house.state.md.us; Bob.Cassilly@senate.state.md.us; jmcmahan@harfordcountycouncil.com; camumby@harfordcountymd.gov; Doug.McMillon@walmart.com; Pam.Kohn@walmart.com; Greg.Foran@walmart.com; 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/…/beavercreek-wal-mart-expans…/
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.
Beavercreek Wal-Mart Expansion Begins
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.
BEAVERCREEKRECORD.COM