Supervisors OK Wal-Mart near battlefield in Orange
The Associated Press
Ray Tannler (from left), Jack Matalavage, Debbie Matalavage and Virginia Gerhardt voice their support for a proposed Walmart Supercenter. Orange County supervisors debated the store late into Monday evening.
Published: August 25, 2009
ORANGE—The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted early this morning in favor of a Wal-Mart store, plans for which had unleashed a chorus of criticism from preservationists.
On a 4-1 vote taken shortly before 1 a.m., the board approved a special-use permit that will allow the retailer to build a 130,000-square-foot store on a site near the historic Civil War Wilderness Battlefield.
Supervisors R. Mark Johnson, Zack Burkett, Teel Goodwin and Lee Frame voted yes; Teri L. Pace voted no.
If plans proceed, the store could be open by Christmas 2010.
“Speaker after speaker tonight who was against Wal-Mart seemed to think we got the idea we wanted a Wal-Mart, so we called Bentonville, Arkansas, and ordered a Supercenter and said, ‘Deliver it to the Wilderness Battlefield,‘“ Johnson said earlier during the public hearing.
“That’s not the way it works. This was a private deal between a private landowner and private business. When they came to us, they were owed a due-diligence answer from us.“
He chided those who suggested an alternative site for the store.
“That’s not our role,“ Johnson said.
“How would you like it if you came up and said, ‘I have a business idea,‘ and we said, ‘We want that business, but not from you. We’re going to give it to your neighbor’?“
“Those of you who accuse us of rushing into something, well, this has been going for two years,“ Johnson added. “This certainly has been a long process.“
About 400 people crowded the Orange County High School Auditorium for the hearing on the issue, and more than 100 speakers took turns at the microphone to express their views last night.
Most of the 84 local residents who spoke favored the store, and those who were opposed objected more to the location than to the retailer itself.
The 20 speakers from outside the county predominantly opposed the store, but they, too, objected to location more than to Wal-Mart itself.
About 100 people stuck around to hear the vote this morning and applauded the outcome.
Wal-Mart needed a special-use permit allowing it to build near the intersection of state Routes 3 and 20.
The site is across the street from a sign that welcomes visitors to the Wilderness, the battlefield where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant squared off for the first time.
Last Thursday, after its own public hearing, the county’s Planning Commission voted 4-4 on the issue, which counted as a negative recommendation to the supervisors.
The application attracted national attention because of its proposed location near the battlefield. Movie star Robert Duvall, who lives nearby, led an early charge against the store but did not appear last night.
“I think it will bring the property to its highest and best use,“ said Gary Teates, a self-employed arborist who has lived near the intersection for 20 years.
“If Wal-Mart doesn’t do it, somebody else will. Somebody could come in and bulldoze the whole site,“ he said at the hearing.
He applauded Wal-Mart’s promise to set aside a third of its 50-plus-acre site as a conservation easement and to build the store nearly a quarter-mile off the road.
Among opponents, one man warned that Wal-Mart may win the battle but lose the war. “If they build here, they will lose customers nationally,“ he said.
“This site is significant,“ he said. “But through a coincidence of history, it’s also the site of one of the more significant battles of the Civil War.“
The Union and the Confederacy suffered 29,000 casualties during particularly brutal fighting at the site on May 5-6, 1864.
Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park and a regular at the county’s public hearings on the store, again implored the supervisors to keep the area as it is.
Last night, an occasional speaker elicited catcalls, cheers and laughter from the audience, but on the whole the crowd was well-mannered.
The site has been zoned for commercial use since the 1970s, but this includes a size cap on individual buildings that is less than half the 130,000 square feet that Wal-Mart plans.
The intersection has a scattering of retail stores, a gas station and a bank. It lies about halfway between Wal-Marts in Culpeper and Spotsylvania counties.
Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .
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Reader Reactions
I would hardly say Wood/Hurt or anyone else runs roughshod over the regulations. It is difficult to start a lg. business b/c there are so many burdonsome regulations in the city and that is the City’s loss. Once the regulations are met the City or County quickly comes up with new ones. Circuit City gave up on trying to get a larger store despite being a Va. based business, bringing in a lot of tax money to the state & locales, b/c of the regulatory hurdles. It took ~10-15 years to get the Best Buy put in and I think that is on county land b/c the City doesn’t allow business and captalism in its jurisdiction. That’s a lot of tax money to benefit the County, I guess. The County is just as bad and getting worse from my understanding of the situation. People move here and then after they move in they decide they don’t want any further growth, fairly hypocritical of them. Maybe, I’ll put up an electric fence (solar powered of course) instead of a wall.
No argument on whether the landowner has their rights. Those rights are, however, subject to zoning regulations, and the size of the project is what required a special permit. If the BOS is unwilling to follow its own guidelines, it would seem that the exception ought to be compelling. (Otherwise, why have the zoning restriction in the first place?)
Is that the case here?
The truth is that a WalMart CAN pull these kinds of strings, and make a case, and DOES expect a community to yield. In this case, it seems that the local contingent wants the convenience and low prices—who wouldn’t?—and was not willing to say to WalMart: “near here, but not here”.
I just think that WalMart is really dumb in the corporate citizenship category.
The fact is, a responsible corporation can do the sorts of things WalMart does well, without doing the dumb things. Good citizenship can be good business. The idea that a large employer—by virtue of providing jobs—ought to have dominion over the quality and character of a community—sucks—whether that is WalMart, or that is UVA.
Ditto a big developer, like Charlie Hurt or Wendel Wood in this county. They run roughshod over the guidelines that are applied to everyone else. Yep. That grates my cheese.
There is nothing wrong, or evil, for that matter, with honest work. Been doing that myself since I was nine. Let’s see, I was 26 by the time I worked my way through and out of college—the first time—more than a few years doing every which job, some I’d rather not remember. I suppose I could have called any of those jobs along the way my life’s ambition, settled for Friday nights out with the boys, made a steady diet of what loosely passes for beer… just didn’t see life that way. But hey, it’s a free Country.
When I start to routinely encounter happy, engaged, associates at a WalMart, I’ll be happy, too. Thus far, I have not seen it. I don’t see how any individual can do even the highest paying jobs in that organization full-time, and support themselves, let alone a family. Encouraging young people, part-time parents, empty-nesters and retirees to work as associates—assuming they are given training, taught basic customer service skills, and not treated like dirt (all very big assumptions)—is fine. If that is the standard of living for the community—not good.
“Not everyone gets to go to college and become a professional”. I have seen that kind of anti-education bias used against friends and acquaintances in this community by reverse snobs and the kind of damage they do to people’s self-worth is damning. I have met very few people incapable of, or unsuited to, using that space between their ears. I am not saying that college, per se, is a must—though I do think that there is an economic imperitive to making the most of your educational opportunities, including vocational training. I have known smart and succesful farmers, tradespeople, artisans—and often they are the backbone of a healthy community. Walmart associates? That should not, in my opinion, be an aspiration.
Anyway, my initail argument was, and remains, with WalMart themselves, for being inflexible.
Guess we have some things in common.
If the people of Orange want the Wal-Mart or another business there then who are we to tell them what to do. If this was zoned for commercial use then what is the problem? It had been zoned that way for years. This was not on the Civil War Site nor can it be seen from the site. It seems the people are more upset that it is Wal-Mart than it is another business. People from all around the area were tired of driving an hour or so just to go to a decent sized store, particularly when gas is $4/gal. Also why should these people be forced to shop and get ripped off, paying 10-40% more at some other smaller store in the area. Wal-Mart may not be perfect but it is the number one mitigant to inflation in the U.S., it is also creating jobs, contributing to the economy and providing cheaper goods to those who can’t afford overpriced goods elsewhere. All of the elitist liberals who move down here and then want to shut the barn door once they move in have zero credibility on this issue and have no right to tell people that have been living in the area for decades or really anyone for that matter what to do with their property.
I just want to know where all of these Civil War buffs have been all these years while the guy who owns that land has been paying for taxes and maintenance on that land. Have any of them organized an effort to buy the land from the owner so he didn’t have to develop it? Have any of them pressured their congressmen or senators to appropriate money for the purchase of the site and the addition of it to the rest of the battlefield site?
I find it interesting that people whose property is under threat for some reason always scream about private property rights and how they should be able to do what they want with their land. Why aren’t those folks standing up for this property owner? Maybe they are, but it’s behind the scenes.
It is also interesting to me how educated people with good jobs look down on retail jobs like the ones at Wal-Mart. Many of those same people shop at Wal-Mart and are happy with the low prices, but wouldn’t want their kids to work there. Not everybody gets to go to college and become a professional. How many companies can hire people who have no experience and minimal education? My guess is that there are quite a few high school grads in the Orange area who will be happy with Wal-Mart jobs. Should they be? Well, that is a different question.
I never figured the folks at Wal-Mart to be so dim-witted and/or so pig-headed. It goes to show how large institutions—public or private—can insist on forcing dumb decisions.
I am not a Civil War buff. In most respects, it is a chapter in history that is somewhat removed from my third-generation “immigrant” geneology. I am not a native Virginian, just this year having passed the mark of half my life here.
That said, I made an effort to spend some time with this site, and others, and come to see it as something of hallowed ground. I witnessed a re-enactment near Wilderness that was filmed by Robert Altman, along with my wife and kids. It was not hard to picture what that battle must have been like.
There are pieces of history worth saving. I realize that may conflict with individual property rights. An abandoned field may not always be the highest and best use. On the other hand, there were plenty of options available to Wal-Mart, and in my book, they gave the people of Virginia the back of their hand on this one.
There is a certain irony to locals looking to Wal-Mart as providing highly valued “jobs”—things must be worse than I thought.
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