Wal-Mart expansion bid goes to council Tuesday Wal-Mart expansion bid goes to council Tuesday (September 03, 2004)

Economic Vitality Committee urges approval

The city's Economic Vitality Committee has called on the City Council to ignore oppositions and vote this Tuesday to allow Wal-Mart to expand its Pleasanton store in the Metro 580 retail center at Owens and Rosewood drives.

After three public hearings, Wal-Mart won approval in a 3-2 vote from the Planning Commission to add a 5,700-square-foot stockroom addition to the 10-year-old, 126,000-square-foot store, and to more than double the size of its outdoor garden center to nearly 11,000 square feet.

Wal-Mart architect Doug Hurley said the added space is needed to provide in-store inventory because of increased sales and for more space to display garden products, including Christmas trees and other seasonal and holiday merchandise.

But the Planning Commission's decision over a month ago was appealed by Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Jennifer Hosterman. She and Planning Commissioner and council candidate Matt Sullivan have been critical of Wal-Mart's business practices, including what they call inadequate employee pay and health benefits.

"The members of the Economic Vitality Committee are asking the council to approve the expansion plan as allowed by the Planning Commission and not link its Pleasanton needs to corporate business practices," said James Pease, a committee member. "The expansion of the garden center and the addition of the storage room are in accord with an agreement Pleasanton already has in place for Wal-Mart. They need these additions for the holidays and it's not fair for anyone to hijack their application and cause them to lose a year to build what they need."

Associate City Planner Heidi Kline said that when the Wal-Mart store was initially approved, the company was given an entitlement allowing it to expand by another 30,000 square feet through 2008. Even so, the store would require design approval by the Planning Commission, and it has been this permit requirement that is holding up the expansion.

At the request of the Planning Commission, store architects agreed to make decorative changes to update the store's exterior. Hurley described a number of embellishments planned for the store, including new masonry colonnades and trellises facing Owens Drive, new decorative entry features to the main customer entrance, more trees and shrubs and tubular steel canopy elements along the walls of the main building and the proposed stockroom addition.

The Economic Vitality Committee's decision has been sent to council members in advance of Tuesday's meeting, when Hosterman's appeal will be heard.

"The fact is that Wal-Mart is already operating in our city and it has an agreement in place to allow for expansion," said committee member Mark Woolridge. "It would seem inappropriate to renege on that agreement or try to make them jump through more hoops to get what is rightfully theirs."

"We decided that this shouldn't be a discussion of whether or not we want big box-type stores in Pleasanton," he added. "That should be a discussion at another time and at another place."

But Hosterman and Sullivan, in a co-authored Opinion piece in the Aug. 13 issue of the Pleasanton Weekly, said they believe a discussion is appropriate.

"Pleasanton is in the midst of a General Plan update, where issues such as affordable workforce housing, traffic congestion and sustainable city revenues are high on the list of concerns," they wrote. "The Wal-Mart question is indeed relevant and its discussion is the essence of democracy. Councilmember Hosterman has appealed the approval of the expansion, and the community will have a chance to debate these issues at the Sept. 7 City Council meeting."

The City Council will meet starting at 7 p.m. in the Civic Center, 200 Old Bernal Ave. The meeting is also televised live and rebroadcast later on CTV Community Television Channel 29. -Jeb Bing

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