Home Depot deals with lumber, but they can’t seem to get their bat on the ball in Wheaton, Illinois (see 3/10/00 newsflash below). Just about a month ago the Wheaton Planning Commission voted unanimously against Home Depot’s proposal to build a 118,000 s.f. store on 15 acres of land on the western edge of this city. Now, the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals has given Home Depot another strike, by voting this week 5-1 to reject the megastore plan. According to the Daily Herald newspaper, traffic was the issue that fanned Home Depot. Residents of Wheaton and neighboring Winfield have complained repeatedly that the Home Depto will create traffic snarls, but they have also raised serious issues about damage to wetlands and the Winfield creek. Home Depot’s lawyer tried valiantly to dodge the traffic issue, and came up with this intriguing theory about traffic: “To say that anyting that adds traffic is not appropriate, well, that’s just not the test. The test is what will be acceptable.” Obviously, Home Depot did not pass the acceptability test. But they have one more strike before they are out. Because the Plan Commission and the ZBA have wiffed the store, the City Council has to come up with a supermajority vote in favor of this plan, which means 5 of the 7 Council members must vote yes, ignoring the recommendations of all their planning and zoning boards. Put another way, local residents who have been hammering Home Depot need 3 votes to kill the plan.
Last month Home Depot tried to buy more time by asking for the ZBA to delay a vote on their project, because only 4 of 7 members were at the meeting, and Home Depot would have needed all 4 on their side. “We just didn’t feel that lucky,” said Home Depot’s lawyer. The company said their proposal was important enough that all 7 members of the ZBA should have the chance to vote. As of this week, the ZBA got their chance to vote, and it turns out that Home Depot had run out of luck anyway. Home Depot tried weakly to argue that big box stores are a “trend of development”, and noted that other big box stores have come to the area. But it looks like Home Depot won’t be one of them. Strike three could come as soon as next Monday.
