GILROY
– Citizens with concerns about a super Wal-Mart coming to town
are pleased the store is voluntarily conducting a stringent
environmental impact study.
GILROY – Citizens with concerns about a super Wal-Mart coming to town are pleased the store is voluntarily conducting a stringent environmental impact study. But what they really want the nation’s largest retailer to do is figure out how the 220,000-square-foot complex will impact other, smaller, businesses.
As a Wal-Mart Supercenter, the new complex will have a low-cost, full-size grocery store many believe will trounce nearby competition. Businesses, workers and residents have raised concerns ever since Wal-Mart announced plans to move its existing Gilroy store on Arroyo Circle into the Pacheco Pass Shopping Center at Highway 152 and U.S. 101.
Roughly two dozen citizens met with a Gilroy city planner and an outside environmental consultant Tuesday to discuss potential impacts from the Wal-Mart project. Issues raised by citizens are supposed to be included in the environmental review, but state law does not require economic impacts to be factored in.
“How will the big gorilla affect the little monkeys? That’s all we’re asking,” Connie Rogers said. “It’s a reasonable request, and I think it would speak quite loudly if six or seven or eight people came to speak about that at the next City Council meeting.”
Whether residents bring their concerns to the Council remains to be seen, but if they do, there may be little the city dais can help them with.
Mayor Tom Springer says the Council does not have the authority to demand an economic impact study since Wal-Mart is moving from one commercially zoned property to another.
“I don’t think there is any grounds for demanding an economic impact report,” Springer said. “It’s just like when Nob Hill moved from their commercial center on Westwood to their current location at First and Wren.”
Wal-Mart is considering doing an economic impact study nonetheless, company spokesperson Amy Hill said Wednesday.
“We believe it will demonstrate a positive impact to the city,” Hill said. “But we don’t believe we should be held to a different standard than other businesses.”
Hill said the positive economic impact comes from bringing more out of town consumers to Gilroy. She also claimed towns see overall grocery prices drop when super Wal-Marts are brought into a community.
Few commercial developers in the past have had to do economic impact studies.
Before Lowe’s was brought into the Pacheco Pass center, the city required the home improvement store to conduct an economic impact study. The city could make that demand because it was providing financial incentives – waived development fees in lieu of sales tax revenue – to the company.
In the case of Wal-Mart, no such deal was made.
