At last night’s city council meeting, the council approved an amendment by Kermit Staggers to move the 2nd reading of the Walmart development to July 16, then a substitute motion was made to move it to August 6 (Erpenbach had some picnic or something to attend on July 16 so she wanted it moved). Sorry Walmart for the delay 🙁 The reason why Staggers asked for extra time is so the council and the SON group could review the traffic study. Jamison also wanted to use the time to study an alternative to Walmart at that development site;
“This is where it starts to get real, and I think we’ve got to come up with a better plan a better transition to this neighborhood and I’ll work hard to find a better alternative to that plan,†said councilor Greg Jamison before the vote to delay the second reading.
I know when I walked out of the council meeting last night, the developer who is attempting to broker the land deal didn’t look too happy, but of course he never does.
I addressed the council about representational government, residents (taxpayers/voters) and small business in Sioux Falls, and told them the reason they are asked to vote on this project, even though Walmart may have a legal right to be there, is because they need to represent their constituents, not Walmart.
Do city planners and zoning regulators consider traffic flow, interstate access, too?
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/80809/
That is one of the main reasons there was a deferral, so the SON people could have time to review the traffic study by a neutral engineer.
To all you SON proponents. Dot your I’s and cross your T’s. What is said at city council meetings is not worth squat. Case in point. On Dec 5th 2011, Brett Roemen, owner of Empire care ash came before the commission with a ton of promises concerning a truckwash he wanted to build by Flyin J. Being a GOOD neighbor, he promised the wash would not under any circumstances be used as a washout for hog trailers…only a truck wash. He promised excavation for the building would be moved to the north side and used as a berm against the residential area. He promised trees to seperate the wash from residents. The full city commission, all eight of them bought into this lie. Today this truckwash is owned by someone else. Roemen sold out after building it, fora very handsome profit. The primary business is hog trailer washouts, something Roemen promised would NEVER happen. No trees. No berm. The whole development is not suitable for residential as had been assured by the city commission. If you don’t mind the smell of pigshit it would bea really great place to build a home or or small commercial business space, which it is zoned for.
Do you really think the eight who signed on to this lie give damn today? Not hardly. Long story short. If you want to save your neighborhood, hire a good lawyer, dot your I’s, cross your T’s. cause if you think this city commission gives a pigs shit what happens next….you got another think coming.
That is Brett Roemen, owner of empire car wash.
NIM – I have said all along, saying NO to them is the most important thing.
With the strong mayor charter the mayor can override the council. Regarding hiring a lawyer, you can’t sue the city per Writ of Certiorari. An attorney will do some back and forth but there is no due process for citizens or the city. What’s really scary is Walmart can build when, where, & how without complying with ordinances. They should be breaking ground already.
N.I.M.B.Y. is right about this.
It was actually this guy’s (Brett Roemen) second attempt to get the truck wash approved. And, he absolutely did make all of those promises!!
Both times he sought approval for the truck wash, the Council and and Planning Commission were confronted with tremendous opposition, esp. from the Skyline Heights neighborhood. The folks at 85th and Audie might want to have a conversation with the Skyline Heights people.
I thought the truck wash had a conditional use permit attached to it. If that is the case, why can they not hold the current owner’s feet to the fire?!!
Guess I won’t be patronizing Empire Car Wash anymore!!
PL may be correct, the problem is WM needs city approval so they can get taxpayers to pay for utility hookup.
If someone has it on record that the truck wash is not intended to be used as a washout, then it would be very easy to get it closed down.
First of all, a true washout needs a pitch so the material being washed out can flow out of the trailer. I don’t believe that truck wash has pitch to allow that, but if it does it would have been designed that way from day one. A regular truck wash would have no purpose for such a pitch.
Second, a washout needs pits and filters to prevent that material from clogging sewer lines and there is quite a bit of engineering involved to make that happen. If the building wasn’t constructed with the goal of it being a washout, then I don’t see how that would even work without them having all types of issues.
What someone says is one thing. What you can prove is something else. If it is in writing then it shouldn’t be very difficult to have the operation closed until those issues are resolved. The city doesn’t want hog $hit flowing down their sewer drains any more than homeowners want to smell it, so it shouldn’t be that difficult.
Listen to the interesting testimony from both Brett Roemen and the opposition on siouxfalls.org.
Planning Commission meeting November 2, 2011
agenda item #9
http://docs.siouxfalls.org/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=1597&doctype=MINUTES
I made two city councilors aware of the situation out there. Hopefully they will look into it.