Sent from a SYN, member;
If you read the Argus Leader this morning you likely saw the quote from Carol Twedt, former Minnehaha County Commissioner, implying that the homeowners near 85th Street and Minnesota Avenue are at fault for not verifying the City’s plans for the area when they built their houses. “I think when you purchase property, it behooves you as a citizen to find out what the city’s plans are for your area, especially on a thoroughfare like I am,†she said.
Having been active in county planning, Commissioner Twedt understands the need for proper planning. She also recognizes that people rely on the government’s plans once adopted. The single family homeowners near 85th and Minnesota relied on the City’s plans when they built their homes. Going back to the 90s the City’s plans called for the area where these homes exist to be developed into single family neighborhoods. There was no plan for heavy commercial development in the area. Some of us asked at the time as Commissioner Twedt suggested.
While we appreciate the service Commissioner Twedt has provided her constituents, there are times when politicians must admit their have misspoke. Many others have also been mistaken in their understanding that the City long planned the area for significant commercial development well in advance of homes being built. Therefore, we ask that Commissioner Twedt publicly acknowledge that the City had not adopted any plans for large commercial development at the 85th & Minnesota intersection before 2009 when most of the homes were built. To insinuate otherwise is a misrepresentation of the facts.
Twedt needs to concentrate on retirement instead of spreading mis-information:
Carol Twedt, a former Minnehaha County commissioner, said 85th and Minnesota is the right place for a Walmart. She’s lived in a condominium on Minnesota Avenue south of 57th Street for more than 20 years, and she’s watched the city grow around her.
“I think when you purchase property, it behooves you as a citizen to find out what the city’s plans are for your area, especially on a thoroughfare like I am,” she said.
“Growth happens in a vibrant community,” she added.
Here is the facts: The City didn’t have a plan for that corner until it designated it a sub-regional employment center on December 7th, 2009, by that time (see above). We always expected commercial development on that corner, but under Shape Places C-4 commercial development can be an unlimited size, and a 185,000 sq ft super-center is absolutley the biggest and most intense commercial development imaginable.
Plans for Hwy 100 have been in the works for a lot longer and the map shows it going right by this neighborhood.
I feel for them, but c’mon..it’s 85th and Minnesota, what did they expect?
The third and 4th Wal marts will both go a long way to clearing up congestion on 41st and Louise, just like the east side Wal Mart took most of the Iowans/east siders out of the equation.
There’s a community 80 miles north of Las Vegas that built an airfield with strobes for UFO’s. There’s a low power radio station that plays Sci Fi music and has residents come in to talk about when they were kidnapped by aliens.
The point:
Put a bunch of weird proposals before the council and planning commission so they’ll not have time to consider detrimental projects such as Walmart.
I posted a link to a document from the late 90’s that showed this as destined to be commercial development a few weeks back. Have you all just “forgotten” that? – how convenient for your argument.
This line of “argument” from the SO(Y)N crowd has been demonstrated to be due to your inability to do simple back ground research in the past. It shows you still have the same problem that led to your leaders’ purchasing and building there – lack of due diligence.
Here’s a link to that document from 1995 -as updated in 2003.
http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/community_development/commission_archive/Documents/SiouxFallsSDGrowthManagementPlan2003.pdf
Sy,
What the neighbors here expected is the same type of commercial that is at 57th & Minnesota and 69th & Minnesota….NOT 41st & Louise. The city is attempting to place the largest commercial retailer, a 186,000 square foot, 24 hour Supercenter across the street from peoples homes.
The people in this neighborhood always knew there would be commercial at this corner, but expected something similar to Waterfull plaza at 69th & MN. There is a huge difference between a neighborhood sized commercial development and a 24 hour Supercenter.
The city is ignoring the rules that THEY WROTE into their 2035 comprehensive plan & turning their backs on the citizens in this neighborhood in order to accommodate this retailer. There are PLENTY of other places that this store could go on the south side of Sioux Falls. The city should place a smaller level of commercial at this corner and transition to the neighborhood with apartments or townhomes.
This neighborhood is now relying on the voters of Sioux Falls to stand up for it’s citizens and for common sense by voting NO on Referred Law 4 on April 8th.
My house was built in 1978, so why has the city grown around me. Why didn’t they just stay west of me? Now I have C4 development within 500 yards and HWY 100 running by my front door. So what is happening down at 85th/MN is not a unique situation to growth. Give it a break. The housing was planned with everybody’s back yard to 85th street except one house. Just like 57th street was planned in the late 80’s.
The people with the extremely nice acreage, house, and horse stable on the corner of Arrowhead Pkway and Hwy 100, probably are not too please either. But here comes the growth. Deal with it.
The sub-regional employment center designation was new, the long-term development plan was not.
Or did they think the city was planning a divided four lane road between two residential neighborhoods?
When they built, that land was also zoned Agricultural… did they think a hog confinement operation was going to be built there? Pardon the pun – but hogwash.
Definitely a YES vote for me! Maybe some of you can get actual jobs then and not complain about the city all day!
You all know there is an easy solution to all your complaints Move Out Of The City Of Sioux Falls!
Boy, some of you are really ignorant of the timeline of all of the planning decisions. Find the correct information @ http://www.saveyourneighborhood.org And the statements about the homeowners not doing research before building has been proven incorrect and published many times. Find the correct information @ http://www.saveyourneighborhood.org
Hey, Anonymus_Love IT, check this out.
Do you think Walmart is really serious about adding jobs to our economy? Consider these points:
First, it’s pretty obvious that the proposed 4th store will entail a redistribution of jobs from the other Sioux Falls stores, at least in part. So the 250 new “quality†jobs (mostly cashiers) number continually tossed around is not accurate.
Second, from a USA today article January 24, 2014 Walmart eliminated “2,300 workers at its Sam’s Club division as it reduces the ranks of middle managers in a bid to be more nimble.†So much for upward mobility to a “quality†job.
Third, September 1, 2012 International Digital Times reported that Walmart was testing a “Scan & Go†system at a supercenter in Arkansas. An app on your personal smart phone scans your purchases and checks you out by using self checkout and bagging, then charging your debit/credit card. There are similar systems used widely in Europe. Customers there do their shopping using a store-supplied hand scanner. There is little to no interaction with store employees. Walmart’s proposed system will use YOUR scanner (smartphone) thus saving them millions in hardware costs. Bad news for cashiers – less cashiers needed. The “smartphone powered self-checkout process could help shave some of the $12 million Walmart spends each second to cover the cost of cashiers’ wagesâ€. Already with self checkout lanes, one cashier can handle six lanes, reducing the number of employees from 6 to 1.
And today, it was announced that Walmart bought the web information portal http://www.About.com. It’s a site that has plain language explanations about a number of topics, and has additional pages on specific areas such as antivirus, databased, banking, home, parenting, etc.
It seems weird that WM would purchase this. But, it is pretty obvious that withall of their the advanced technology planned, the only “quality” jobs that will be added will be in the information technology/systems field and you can bet those jobs won’t be in THIS town.
teatime demonstrates once again that this is NOT about “zoning” – it is about Walmart bashing.
In addition, why would SO(Y)N post any information that DOESN’T support their position. They certainly wouldn’t be PREJUDICED in their “research” now, would they?
Teatime makes a good point. Walmart will not bring that many jobs. They consider people (worker & consumer) a commodity they control. There will be more employees for diverse commercial development. A branch bank, bistro, dry cleaner, & specialty retail is best for this parcel.
We don’t need another Walmart. 3 is enough for a city of 160k. Another Target is a good idea but put it in a zone near the interstate. There’s only one now. A Target has better products and more personal service.
rufusx,
could you be more specific where I should look in that document your referencing? I went through it some, but I didn’t find any maps that designated that 85th Street and Minnesota location for future commercial development. Could you help me out, please? if it is not a map that you are referring to, could you specify the pages. Thanks so much.
Time and time again I see people post about the “fact” that there is only one Target in Sioux Falls. Does no one on this blog ever goes east of Sycamore Ave? There had been a Target at Dawley Farms for 4 years now.
And self check-out is the main reason to go to Walmart. Who cares about more jobs? 8 self checkouts on the east side. I can be in and out of that store in 5 minutes. You stand in line for longer than that at the east side Target.
If I can scan with my phone and just walk out. One more reason to shop there.
A carton of Land O’ Lakes milk came from the same place whether I buy it at Hy-Vee, Target or Walmart. As do the clothing and electronics.
The funny thing here is how so many have ignored the fact that the spokesperson for SON doesn’t even live in the neighborhood. In fact she lives in Heatherridge – approximately seven – eight blocks Northwest of the corner which has caused all the concern.
Now look at the owner address for her property and you start seeing connections to a LLC which has been purchasing multiple properties in the area as investments – long after the homes were built, and long after the sub-regional employment center designation.
So she might have concerns about property values, but it isn’t for her own home… it is for her investments. Can we really say she did her homework when she was buying these properties long after the sub-regional employment center designation? Seems to me she is one of those ‘specials’ so many of you seem to complain about and she is only concerned with protecting her investments. The whole talk about her children walking to school was a con, because if they step out of their back door and walk across their lawn, they will be on school property.
Sure there are a few homes which would actually be impacted by development at 85th and Minnesota – namely the three homes along Audie which might be able to see it, but as to the others their true fears surround traffic that they feel will use their neighborhood to bypass 85th. They have admitted this during interviews. Those fears are unfounded, and the Walmart plan has been modified to not allow access as a direct connection from Audie, but I can understand homeowners having some reservation about things they may not understand. That is entirely natural and expected.
Truth is, there is primarily one home which will suffer from a new Walmart, and that is one of Bonita Schwan. She is the one who will deal with increased traffic along 85th and she will likely see the Walmart while standing in her dining room. That said I still cannot figure out why she opted to build DIRECTLY on 85th knowing full well it was going to be a major east-west four lane divided roadway. In addition she is across the street from land which could potentially be apartments or multifamily (East of Audie), and the land across from her on 85th was zoned AG and which (as rufus has so conveniently pointed out several times) was slated for commercial development as far back as the 1990s.
Add to that the fact that zoning is exclusive rather than inclusive and you have a recipe that causes most to shake their heads wondering what she was thinking when she opted to build there. Then again, she also used a contractor with a questionable reputation most well known for building starter homes as cheaply as possible while still meeting minimum code, so I sincerely doubt research was a top concern at the time.
SON has their own version of events they like to focus upon, and in most cases what they claim is true but it doesn’t tell the entire story. They fail to acknowledge that their own developer changed Twin Eagle and sold lots as single family when they were originally zoned and platted as multi-family. They fail to acknowledge there was no additional buffer designated in any plans after those changes were made. They fail to admit that zoning for the land in question was never limited to only the original designation and they ignore that zoning can and does change over time.
They seem to think (and have admitted) that because they thought it would be home to a smaller scale commercial development such as what is found at 69th and Minnesota or 57th and Western that they should somehow have a right to dictate what happens there. Their spokesperson has even been quoted in the Argus as saying “we were here first”!
Truth is, if you ignore the fact this is a Walmart and just assume it is a massive Hy-Vee, Target, or Home Depot… would most of you still care? Doubtful. What is even more comical is some of the same people complaining about this Walmart are the very same people in support of one at 69th and Cliff – backed up against residential homes and across the street from a school. Yet they try to tell us that was somehow different?
If you flip-flop on an issue you should be able to explain why right? I can understand Jamison flip-flopping because he has an election to win and he needed to find ways to differentiate his positions from that of his opponent. Since Huether already made his support for Walmart clear, Jamison was left with the choice of either agreeing with him (hard to score political points that way), or going the other way. The fact Jamison was the ONLY councilor to vote in support of Walmart at 69th and Cliff is something he is hoping the voters don’t remember.
I can’t blame people from hating on Walmart – in fact I do it myself. I don’t like the company, I don’t like the brand, and I don’t like their culture. However I’m not making this about Walmart, I’m making this about commercial development. I also believe if most of you would separate the two concepts you could find yourself agreeing… but I suppose it is hard to admit as much after months of Walmart bashing.
Either way, it is safe to say minds are made up on the topic, so this last minute push to try and convince people of your views isn’t going to have any impact upon the final vote. I’m still fairly certain we will see the Yes vote coming out on top, and I won’t be surprised if it is a large margin.
Small correction, there are 2 Targets in town now. I am confused along with rufusx on what the neighborhood is exactly fighting here-zoning or bash Wal-Mart. As far as I can see, this area was designed for commercial, now I know the neighborhood was thinking or maybe even told by developers it would turn out to be like 57th, but in reality it was zoned for commercial which leaves it wide open. Maybe that is why we need to also pass Shape Places which will put a specific commercial label on a specific area. Growth is going to happen and needs to happen to keep a city alive.
Thank you Dan Daily.
rufusx: For some people, it is about stopping walmart.
Dan – are you saying that the city government should dictate to property owners what they can build and where, and how they can use it, whether it makes good marketing/business sense or not?
You should let Bruce know how you feel about this.
For the record, RUFUSX, I simply cannot find anything in that document that you sourced that indicates that specific area at 85th and Minnesota was destined for C-4 –highest intense commercial development.
I think your blow’n smoke. I am saying you are full of it. You are being deceitful.
And doubly so, because I asked you very nicely to point out to me in the document what you referencing, and you offered up NOTHING. That leads me to think you are just blow’n smoke. Your credibility with me is not much.
Come on, tell which page. I’v had the document up on tab waiting……waiting……waiting……waiting……
Sammy, I am looking for a map that specifically shows the future use for 85th/MN. Meanwhile, here is the “scoping memorandum” for SD 100, from October of 2001, that clearly shows 85th/MN as one of only 5 major intersections on SD 100. The others being @ I-90, Rice St., SD 42, and SD 11. See then map on Page 19 – where SF development barely goes S of 57th. This has LONG been the plan.
http://www.siouxfalls.org/~/media/Documents/planning/transportation/eastside-corridor/scopingmemo%20pdf.pdf
I keep wondering what rufusx’s stake in this is.
You would think he would be too busy running for mayor of Lennox to be tending to Sioux Falls business!!
There are at least 3 maps in that study that show the potential for a major interchange just south of 85/Minn. and no housing within 1 1/2 miles of that area.
T-V, my “stake” in this is supporting truth and accuracy.
What’s yours?
I don’t think anyone should be questioning Rufus’s integrity without knowing his history. You may not always agree with him (I know I don’t), but Rufus does provide facts and data to support his positions, and he is uniquely qualified to discuss some of these issues due to his years of experience in city planning.
I’m also not a huge fan of people suggesting merely because he doesn’t live in Sioux Falls city limits that he should keep quiet. I’ve seen similar comments several times, and I have to wonder why people fear a voice from somewhere else? There are several posters here who don’t live in Sioux Falls – some as far away as the Twin Cities… so what? Each bring a unique perspective and their opinions are no less valid only because of their geographical location.
RUFUSX, I am back, which is doubtful you even know at this late date.
YOU SAY: Sammy, I am looking for a map that specifically shows the future use for 85th/MN.
I SAY: Your hair will be gray (if not already) and you will still be looking for it.
YOU SAY: Meanwhile, here is the “scoping memorandum†for SD 100, from October of 2001, that clearly shows 85th/MN as one of only 5 major intersections on SD 100.
I SAY: Hmmmm. I don’t think you got that out of the document you were quoting that “destined” 85th and Minnesota for C-4. And if I am building a house in say, 2005, and I am looking for what is going to develop in that area, are you saying that document you referenced isn’t a good enough resource? ARE YOU SAYING I HAVE TO DO EXTENSIVE RESEARCH?
YOU SAY: The others being @ I-90, Rice St., SD 42, and SD 11. See then map on Page 19 – where SF development barely goes S of 57th. This has LONG been the plan.
I SAY: WHAT has long been the PLAN? Putting in a Highway going around the City that is called the Eastside Corridor?? I have gotten a chuckle on that over the years. Eastside Corridor, my foot.
I digress, what is “WHAT PLAN?”–a highway or A HIGH INTENSE COMMERCIAL C-4 development?
YOU SAY: http://www.siouxfalls.org/~/media/Documents/planning/transportation/eastside-corridor/scopingmemo%20pdf.pdf
I SAY: I am sorry, I forgot to check out the “scoping memos” in 2005. Shame on me.
RUFUSX: By the way, I am still waiting, waiting, waiting. Your credibility is shot.
CRAIG, YOU SAY:
“Truth is, there is primarily one home which will suffer from a new Walmart, and that is one of Bonita Schwan. She is the one who will deal with increased traffic along 85th and she will likely see the Walmart while standing in her dining room.”
I SAY: Who are you kidding.
Come on out folks, drive on out to Louise and 85th and start driving east. Craig has his head buried in the sand.
YOU SAY:
” I don’t think anyone should be questioning Rufus’s integrity without knowing his history. You may not always agree with him (I know I don’t), but Rufus does provide facts and data to support his positions, and he is uniquely qualified to discuss some of these issues due to his years of experience in city planning.”
I SAY:
I am still waiting for him to back up his statement that 85th and Minnesota was “destined” to be C-4 as specified in the document link to the Growth Management Plan 2003. I am still waiting for him to tell me which page in that document that he is deriving that FACT from. When he provides that, he’ll have some creds. Some obscure “scoping memo” ain’t going to cut it.