Will SON refer the council’s Tuesday night decision?

ARGUS LEADER: Building Boom map: ‘Never seen it this busy’ 

Another set of large commercial projects, two new Walmart supercenters, that were expected to start construction this year have been delayed. It’s now unknown whether work will begin yet this year, but company officials have said at least the north-side store is on track to open in 2014.
The planning commission Wednesday approved a conditional-use permit for that store, at 60th Street and Marion Road. Another Walmart at 85th Street and Minnesota Avenue has further to go; the council agreed to rezone land for the project Tuesday.
A conditional-use permit for the south-side store would go before the planning commission in October at the earliest, Schmitt said. If the permits for each site are approved, the company then would be able to apply for building permits.
“We don’t know if they will pull a building permit yet this year,” he said. It’s a question of “how much work can you get done in South Dakota in the fall versus do you wait until first thing in the spring.”

For now, it appears that the 60th & Marion project appears to finally be moving forward on its own merits, but if SON decides to refer Tuesday night’s council decision you can fully expect MMM, Jeff Schmitt, and other city officials to change their tune.

Look for Jeff Schmitt’s quote concerning the construction start time at 60th & Marion to go from,

“It’s a question of how much work can you get done in South Dakota in the fall versus do you wait until first thing in the spring” to,

“Now that SON has referred the council’s rezoning decision at 85th & Minnesota, they have effectively stalled the construction at 60th & Marion at the same time.”

The take away from this article is this: the SON group really didn’t hold up millions of dollars in projects all over the city, just the Walmart project at 85th & Minnesota.  MMM and his merry band of pranksters are banking on the inattention of Sioux Falls citizens on this one.

KDLT: The next step for Walmart is to get a conditional use permit approved. That will allow the proposed 185,000 square foot Walmart to be built. A C-4, or commercial zoning, only allows up to a 15,000 square foot building. Council members said they expect to approve that permit as well.   

As suspected, the city council had their minds made up long before their vote on Tuesday night.  Now it appears that the conditional use permitting process that these citizens fought so hard to protect by referring the proposed Shape Places Zoning Ordinances will simply be a rubber stamp for Mayor Huether’s agenda.  “Trust the process,” MMM told them.  That certainly isn’t how “the process” is intended to work, but whatever Mikey likes, apparently Mikey gets.

Based on this, these citizens have only one option, a referendum of Tuesday night’s decision.