Richard Suttle, Jr., planning engineer working for Wal-Mart, made a short presentation at the Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods last night (Wednesday, April 9th). He rolled out the current site inventory map, which shows the topographical features of the site and the boundary lines in relationship to the current roads, apartments, and houses in the area.

It?’s going to be a 24-hour Wal-Mart Superstore, which means that America?’s largest company, largest employer, and now the largest grocery chain, will trying to fit into our community by 2005.

The first thing that struck me was that this site is the entire block of land, from Slaughter Lane to Davis Lane, along MOPAC. It?’s about 1/4 mile long. The store is expected to be around 200,000 square feet (I think that is bigger than two Home Depot stores). They are permitted to build (impervious cover) on 65% of that land under the zoning permit in place today and they expect to cover 51% at this time. And, yes, that includes paving right over that Oil Pipeline that was just replaced last summer.

They are planning for entrances and exits on Slaughter Lane on the south side and Davis Lane on the northern end. There were immediate concerns about environmental issues (at least 3 sinkholes have been identified and will be avoided), ground water run-off may be captured without the need for a large retention pond (no details on that yet), and trees have already been labeled and man of them will remain in clusters.

The biggest concern, voiced at the OHAN meeting, seemed to be Traffic. Richard reported that he things a recent traffic study was made for the City of Austin, about a year ago, by or with the Stratus development group. He also said that Wal-Mart planned to build this store using limestone, similar to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center and that the plan is to try to keep it shield by as many trees as possible. The building will be on the north end of the lot (the downhill side) and it will face south, towards Slaughter Lane. He said that the Wal-Mart store in Georgetown is a close by example of how they can work with the site to blend in more that the typical blue and gray boxes that Wal-Mart usually constructs.

There will be some diagrams and aerial photos available at the OHAN web site and in the Oak Hill Gazette, shortly.



Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods, ''OHAN'' for short, is a group of people who meet once a month to review proposed changes to our community and offer input, and advice.

http://www.ohan.org

CCHOA Wal-Mart ad hoc comm

Our committee meets for the first time on Thursday night to consider and investigate the Wal-Mart Superstore project.

There is no CCHOA opinion or position on this project, yet. There are many issues, including the ''unknown'' consequences of some other development, other than Wal-Mart.

There will be an effort to solicit opinions and ideas from the whole Circle C Ranch community, a little later, but feel free to post your thoughts here or on www.circlec.cc and of course, you can always write to info@cirlcecranch.com, too!

I have heard comments for and against Wal-Mart. I was surprised at how many women were in favor of it the store - citing closer access as desirable, 24x7 hours as good for people who work odd hours or shift work, and the desire for a larger grocery store. The men seem to be more concerned about traffic, environmental concerns, and architectural aesthetics. A teacher told me that they didn't pay well, but they offered good parttime jobs for the High School kids.

If you have an opinion or some issues to investigate, please post them here and/or write an email to Circle C Ranch HOA.

Some things to think about are: Traffic, noise, security, jobs, water quality, parking lot lights on all night, competition to the local grocery stores (HEB, Randals, Albertson's, etc), how it ends up looking, and what might happend if Wal-Mart backed out.

Next time you drive north on MOPAC, look at the site as you approach the bridge at Davis Lane and try to envision a Wal-Mart store on that lower area of the site. Think about 50% of that long frontage lot paved over, with clumps of trees in islands, and activity all day and night long, with traffic entering and leaving on Slaughter Lane and Davis Lane.

Wal-Mart worries

Here's one woman who is more concerned with traffic, water quality and other environmental issues (and aesthetics) than having another monolith to shopping erected nearby. This company may provide jobs to teens, but at what cost? My daughter found they work them for very low wages, and fill their workforce with 30-hour employees so as not to pay for benefits. They have a record for undercutting local stores' buying power, and driving them out of business. Their stores are ugly and the parking lots blaze with huge lights, obscuring the night sky's view. I don't want them near our corner of the planet. We have three large grocery stores now within 10 minutes' drive--we don't need another. Of all people, the teacher should be against teens having jobs that cut into their study time and cause them to fall asleep during classes!

Suttle is a lawyer, not engineer

Richard Suttle, Jr is an attorney working for Wal-Mart, not a engineer.


By Bubba