Many residents in Pleasanton, California find the thought of another huge Home Depot store in their community an unpleasant idea. Plans for a Home Depot on 15 acres on the city’s east side has attracted opposition among residents, according to the Contra Costa Times. “There is absolutely nothing about this project that makes sense,” one resident was quoted as saying. The city’s Planning Commission recently held a workshop on the project. The Commission has asked that further study be done of the project’s impacts on traffic in the area. “I believe (the Home Depot) will cause more congestion in an area that is already and getting congested,” another resident told the newspaper. The developer actually tried to convince planners that the type of traffic Home Depot generates “is best suited for the area’s traffic patterns”, because Home Depot’s traffic is concentrated during off-peak traffic hours, not a constant flow like a grocery store. In fact, Home Depot is a very high volume traffic generator, and has peak hours in the weekday evening and especially on the weekends. Home Depot traffic in many cases would exceed that of a grocery store. Residents also noted that there is another Home Depot just a few miles away on Johnson Drive, and the residents would rather have a grocery store at this site. The developer responded by saying their Home Depot would focus on the garden center and home d??cor, while the nearby Home Depot would focus on lumber and contracting supplies. The Home Depot is located on land that is zoned commercially, and needs a Planning Commission approval.
Residents of Pleasanton are hopefully talking to a good land use attorney, one not from their local city. They need to look at the California Environmental Quality Review Act, and do a peer review of the developer’s traffic study, to widen the area of focus, and look carefully at the level of service on roadways. The Planning Commission has the power to deny this project for traffic or other site considerations. They won’t do that unless they feel a lot of public pressure to do so. There simply is no need for another Home Depot. This store is not being built for the residents of Pleasanton. It’s being built for investors on Wall Street.
