Wal-Mart foes
request public hearing
A group of Keeaumoku Street area residents and a union are appealing to Circuit Court the city's refusal to rule on a conditional use permit that allows construction of the Wal-Mart/Sam's Club supercomplex.
Early last year, Citizens Against Reckless Development and Local 489 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union petitioned the director of the city Department of Planning and Permitting to rule on whether the conditional use permit was illegal and whether it violated the Land Use Ordinance and department regulations.
They also sought a ruling on the board's classification of Sam's Club as a "retail" as opposed to "wholesale" establishment. In response, the department director declined to issue any decision relating to the approval of the conditional use permit and found that the proposed Sam's Club is the equivalent of a retail establishment under the Land Use Ordinance.
The groups are not asking to stop the nearly completed project or have it torn down, but simply for the Department of Planning and Permitting to hold a public review of the project's effect on the neighborhood and community, and require Wal-Mart to offset any impacts.
The groups had appealed to the board twice challenging the issuance of the conditional use permit but were denied because they had not filed within the 30-day mandatory deadline.
The groups contend they did not even know a conditional use permit had been issued or that Wal-Mart had sought one until construction began in late November 2002 -- well past the appeal deadline.
A lawsuit they filed against Wal-Mart and the city was dismissed in September 2003.