According to the Glastonbury Citizen newspaper, developers in Glastonbury, Connecticut are promising local residents that their 131,795 s.f. Home Depot will be “nice” and “well thought-out”. They’ve even promised to make it “compatible” with the neighboring architecture. But the Home Depot project, which spills over into the town of East Hartford, doesn’t fool residents. Patrick McGinley, who would have the giant warehouse store as a neighbor, borrowed a line from Sprawl-Busters when he told the Glastonbury Plan and Zoning Commission that Home Depot was just “Wal-Mart with a hammer”. Another resident questioned Home Depot’s “cavalier attitude” towards environmental regulations, and voiced concerns over pollutants entering the Connecticut River. (The state’s Attorney General recently took Wal-Mart to court for polluting 11 rivers, see newsflash below). The P&Z Commission took two and a half hours of testimony on the Home Depot case, and then adjourned to hear the matter again on July 18th. Very few people at this week’s hearing are expected to change their minds about how “nice” Home Depot really is for their town.
Glastonbury becomes just one more town trying to hammer Home Depot. For more information on citizen opposition to Home Depot in Glastonbury, contact [email protected]