Not so fast, Wal-Mart

Tarpon approves the store's site plan, but opponents file an appeal.

By THERESA BLACKWELL, Times Staff Writer
Published October 26, 2007

TARPON SPRINGS - Opponents of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter overlooking the Anclote River lost a battle Thursday, but they are already pressing forward on another front.

The Friends of the Anclote River and Suncoast Sierra Club representatives had hoped to persuade the city's Technical Review Committee to delay reviewing proposed changes to Wal-Mart's site plan. But after meeting for more than three hours, the committee approved the plan with some revisions and conditions.

Still, the fight will go on. Opponents this week filed an appeal with the city's Board of Adjustment, claiming changes in the site plan are major, not minor, as the Technical Review Committee has labeled them.

Major changes would require further approvals and public hearings where opponents could make their case. Minor ones do not.

These latest rounds of jousting come more than two years and eight months after an all-night City Commission meeting where commissioners voted 3-2 to allow Wal-Mart to build a 24-hour supercenter with a garden center, supermarket, drive-through pharmacy, and tire and lube station on the east side of U.S. 19.

At Thursday's meeting, the Technical Review Committee, which consists of members of the city's staff, was reviewing whether the new site plan conforms with Tarpon Springs codes.

First, committee members listed their concerns with the plan. Some problems centered on the configuration of the water system, water metering and the irrigation system. Others related to details like lights, landscaping, the proposed kayak launch and exotic plants to be eliminated. A no-parking zone for emergency vehicles was required in back of the building and more signs were needed for a bus loop.

Wal-Mart will do whatever you ask, company lawyer David Theriaque told city officials.

Before the meeting ended, Wal-Mart had agreed to ameliorate two more issues raised by opponents.

Renea Vincent, director of the city's planning and zoning division, asked that Wal-Mart update its permit application to the Southwest Florida Water Management District to show that two planned stormwater inlets are no longer within a 30-foot buffer zone of the river.

Vincent also said the northern entrance into the store parking lot may be too narrow. The city's code requires an entrance 35 feet wide so vehicles can turn, but Wal-Mart's plan showed just 25 feet of space. That can be resolved in several ways she said, including flaring out the road at that point, but it must be addressed in some way.

Wal-Mart agreed to do that.

The city has not yet scheduled the appeal to the Board of Adjustment, but opponents already say they won't stop there.

"Obviously, in this case, the store is inappropriate," Colin Fiske of St. Petersburg, speaking for the Friends of the Anclote River, said outside the meeting. "So we're going to try to stop it."

Theresa Blackwell can be reached at tblackwell@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

Fast facts

On the Web

For information on the Wal-Mart project, go to www.ci.tarpon-springs.fl.us/text.html. Click on "Wal-Mart plan site review" in yellow in the left column. Documents related to the project are there. And the minutes of Thursday's Technical Review Committee meeting will be posted there soon. Revised plans will be posted there once Wal-Mart submits them.

[Last modified October 25, 2007, 22:24:39]