On December 17, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart had launched an assault on the city of The Dalles, Oregon. The Dalles(pronounced “dayulz”) is located in the north-central part of the state on the scenic Columbia River. It is the Wasco county seat, and the largest community in the County, with a population in 2000 of just over 12,000 people. The Dalles describes itself as one of Oregon’s most historical cities and is known as “the town at the end of the Oregon Trail.” Wal-Mart’s growth trail has led it to the Dalles, and it’s not hard to understand why. The city boasts that it offers “the pleasure of rural living” while being only 80 miles from big city amenities in Portland. The City has a retail area of about 70,000 persons in Washington and Oregon. Its economy has been driven in the past by agriculture, tourism, health care government, and retailing. In early December of 2008, Wal-Mart began the permitting process to construct a 150,000 s.f. superstore. The developer fronting the effort is PACLAND, which has offices in Washington state, Oregon, California and Arizona. Almost everywhere PACLAND goes with its big box projects, controversy follows. Sprawl-Busters has documented PACLAND fights in Red Bluff, California; Cornelius and Gresham, Oregon; Cedar Hills, Utah; and Chelan, Washington. PACLAND is one of the most prolific Wal-Mart developers on the West Coast. The Dalles Chronicle reported that PACLAND endured a four hour hearing on its proposal to build a superstore in The Dalles. The closest Wal-Mart is in Hood River, where Wal-Mart tried to replace its discount store with a supercenter, only to be rejected in a lengthy court battle. In The Dalles, more than 100 people turned out for the Planning Commission hearing. No decision was reached in December. PACLAND has also applied to the city to subdivide their 67-acre parcel into five lots. That case began just before Thanksgiving. City officials said the Wal-Mart proposal is a commercial project in a commercial zone, and that shopping centers are an allowed use in commercial-light industrial zones. PACLAND’s proposal is the largest store in The Dalles. PACLAND’s lawyer said the opposition raised against the superstore “is the same thing we’ve heard all over the state.” The attorney said that not liking Wal-Mart is not a criteria in a land use case. According to The Chronicle, one witness in favor of Wal-Mart paraphrased an attorney in the O. J. Simpson murder trial by saying, “If the zoning fits, you must permit.” But many witnesses spoke against the plan, and said it does not fit — including an environmental group, the Columbia Riverkeepers, which said the Planning Commission did not have enough information on traffic and environmental impacts to make a decision. A citizen’s group, Citizens for Responsible Development, has also formed to fight the project, and has hired two attorneys to represent them. The group told the media it has 135 members now, and hopes to reach 1,000 or more. Opponents did more than vent against Wal-Mart as a corporation. They submitted information demonstrating that the Wal-Mart site plan is incompatible with the city’s Comprehensive Plan Economic Development Goals on diversity of the economic base of the community, encouraging the growth of existing employers and attracting new employers to The Dalles. The adverse impacts from this project on other businesses was raised as an issue, charging that Wal-Mart would cause other local businesses to fail, leading to empty storefronts and “urban blight.” Rather than try to address these charges, PACLAND’s attorney said compliance with the comprehensive plan is not a criteria that the planning commission can consider. In other words, the city should ignore all its goals and plans. On January 9, 2009, the city’s Planning Commission approved the creation of a new subdivision for the project. The Citizens for Responsible Development promptly appealed that decision to The Dalles City Council. According to The Chronicle, on February 9th, the citizen’s appeal was unanimously rejected by the city council. That means the next step in the local process is the public hearing on the project’s site plan, which will come before the City Council on February 23rd. Attorney Kenneth Helm, representing the citizen’s group, objected to the subdivision because of its potential impact on traffic, wetlands, pollution into Chenowith Creek, and economic impacts on the community. In response, Wal-Mart argued that many of these objections had not been raised earlier at the Planning Commission hearing, and therefore should not be allowed during the appeal to the City Council. Six citizens testified against the project, only one person spoke in favor of the subdivision. After more than three hours of discussion, the City Council ended the hearing, and voted unanimously in support of the Wal-Mart project.
In their 2006 Comprehensive Land Use Plan, The Dalles envisions itself as a “regional retail center.” The city has added a Fred Meyer store, a Home Depot, and a Kmart store — none of them as big as the proposed Wal-Mart. The document seeks “to build upon The Dalles existing strength in the retail sector.” But the plan also calls for using under-developed existing commercial land, and converting some vacant industrial land for retail purposes. The plan also calls for the use of “mixed residential/commercial areas, or Neighborhood Centers.” One of the major goals of the Plan is to “encourage the growth of existing employers, and attract new employers to The Dalles that compliment the existing business community.” Another key economic development goal in the plan is to “encourage redevelopment and adaptive reuse of commercial space downtown as an alternative to commercial sprawl.” The Dalles is working under a policy of encouraging investment in city’s Central Business District, and encouraging the “start up and growth of small to medium-sized businesses providing family wage jobs, and to “plan for appealing streetscapes that encourage personal interaction.” The city is at odds with itself as it seeks to strengthen its downtown, while also expanding “highway commercial developments” along its western gateway area. Wal-Mart is largely incompatible with many of the land use policies and goals that the city is pursuing. Readers are urged to contact The Dalles Mayor, Robb Van Cleave, at: [email protected] with the following message: “Dear Mayor Van Cleave, The Dalles continues to revitalize its central commercial district, to attract environmental tourists, and to find alternatives to commercial sprawl. Yet the proposal submitted by PACLAND for a Wal-Mart nearly three times the size of a football field is just out of scale with the size of your small community. During the 1990s, The Dalles added roughly 1,000 people to its population base, but even adding in the entire population of Wasco County, you still don’t need a store that big. Even though this project is located on commercial land, the Planning Commission and the City Council still have the right to reject a project because of its adverse impact in areas like existing economic activity, traffic and roads, and the environment. You can ask that a project be reduced in size, and in many communities, developers have respected local desires for smaller projects. The project does not fit The Dalles market. It’s a classic example of suburban sprawl, and is largely incompatible with your land use goals. Hood River rejected a Wal-Mart superstore, as have a number of other communities in Oregon. You don’t have to accept a one-size-fits-all mentality. I urge you to prevent PACLAND from gobbling up a major piece of The Dalles, by rejecting their site plan on February 23rd as being incompatible with the land use goals and policies of your community.”