Hercules vs WalMart - An Eminent Domain Question
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Hercules is a small town in the San Francisco Bay Area that is about to fight its biggest battle. And the sad part it is a battle I hope they lose. Their opponent is WalMart who bought land that they wish to build a supercenter on, and the city leaders do not want built. So they are trying to use the governments weapons to take the land from WalMart.
They say they have been working on turning the city around for a long time, then why didn’t they have a long term zoning plan. That is their job. They have the tool to manage property use, but because of a lack of foresight or planning, they let a property be zoned for WalMart to come in and buy and that was zoned for their purposes.
So now they want to come back and take by force the property that they failed to zone properly because WalMart is using the property how the city said it should be used. What utter BS. I hope they lose and lose big to WalMart. It will send a signal to other cities that if you want to control your cites businesses, zone it properly.
No other city in America has considered standing up to the nation’s largest retailer quite like the bedroom community of 24,000 on the Contra Costa County shore that is named for the Greek mythological hero and was once home to a major dynamite plant.
While other cities have rejected Wal-Mart store proposals, the Hercules City Council is to vote Tuesday on whether to begin eminent domain proceedings to forcibly take 17.27 acres from the company, which wants to put a big-box store near an upscale new residential neighborhood next to San Pablo Bay.
Hercules officials and many residents say they envision the former company town becoming like Sausalito or Tiburon, and they fear that a giant discount store would wreak havoc on a half-decade of planning for a bayside village of high-end shops and homes designed to be friendly toward pedestrians.
“One of the main reasons we were drawn to this area was the character Hercules is aiming for with the new waterfront development,” said David Robinett, an attorney who moved to the city last year with his fiancee from Sacramento. “There was imagination and vision at the beginning of this process.”
Others are more blunt.
“I don’t want to have anything ghetto around me and my family,” said Monique Howell, 25, who 18 months ago paid $652,000 for a two-story Craftsman-style home where she lives with her husband and infant son. via the San Francisco Chronicle.
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Comment by D from Hercules on 31 May 2006:
Umm, actually the City of Hercules created a *very* comprehensive long range plan that was in place in 2000. The original developer for the parcel successfully obtained entitlements for a retail project that had a 64,000 sf retail pad - this original proposal was judged to be in compliance with that plan. That developer brought on Wal-Mart as an anchor tenant, and Wal-Mart egged the developer on resubmit the project with a 150,000 sf footprint. The city said no. The developer, seeing that this was an uphill battle, bailed and sold the parcel to Wal-Mart who again reattempted to get the parcel re-entitled with 150,000 sf big box. The city said no, so Wal-Mart trimmed the proposal down to 100,000 sf. As 100,000 sf
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Editor: So the process is working exactly as it should. Why force Eminent Domain?
Comment by D from Hercules on 31 May 2006:
If the Supreme Court has ruled that the use of eminent domain is a valid tool for redevelopment agencies to use in shaping land use, then removing a land owner whom (a) bought a parcel subject to the agency rules and then (b) repeatedly demonstrated their intent to ignore said rules appears to be valid use of this power. This is especially true given that all of the other commercial development has come to a standstill pending the resolution of this matter (none are interested in being adjacent to a Wal-Mart). It’s ironic that a tool that Wal-Mart has had no compunctions in using in other locales has come back to haunt them so, but until the Supreme Court further refines it opinion on the issue and/or there is legislative clarification this use seems to be fair game.