Residents in Logan, Utah are prepared to add their names to the growing list of Utah communities that are fighting the giant retailer. All it took was the announcement of a Wal-Mart to stir up trouble inside Logan. Residents have created a website, www.stoploganwalmart.com, and a letter-writing campaign has begun. Here’s a report received by Sprawl-Busters from the frontlines in Logan: “Our Northern Utah rural valley and community of Logan, Utah, with about 50,000 population, is being faced with a 2nd Wal-Mart to “book-end” both ends of town. We already have too many ‘box stores’ and all since I moved here in 1968. We have in the last 5-10 years, a Wal-Mart Supercenter; Home Depot, Lowes, Sams Club, K Mart, Kohls, TJ Max, Ross, Pier One, Staples, Best Buy, Dillards, etc. and now a huge Wal-Mart Super Center at the south end of our traditional rural agricultural valley. These chains have displaced our home-based businesses, asphalted up rare fertile farm land here in the Western Desert. It’s criminal and we don’t need nor can we afford another retail mega-chain store! We must protect and preserve and sustain our community and rural lifestyle! “I think there’s a large community that feels passionately about this issue,” one resident told the Herald Journal. The city’s Planning Commission recently heard a report from city staff for the initial design review, which will be continued on September 8th. Residents are already talking about boycotting the new store. Logan Mayor Doug Thompson apparently has not brushed up on zoning law for some years. “It’s also the American way when a business buys a piece of land and complies with rules. It’s hard to stop them with their business.”
Especially if you don’t raise the issue of appropriate scale, Mr. Mayor! This debate is not just about the appearance of the building, but the size, and its impact on surrounding property and the economy. If the Planning Board feels that this project is too intense a use, it can ask that the project be scaled back. Opponents of this new project feel that one Wal-Mart in Logan is one more the enough. There is clearly no market need for this store, given the fact that a Wal-Mart supercenter is located only a few miles away. For other stories of Utah communities that are resisting Wal-Mart, search Newsflash by “Utah.”
