Sat, Mar. 02, 2002

Not in their backyard

MARY NEWSOM

Usually the term NIMBY is just an expression. It means Not In My Back Yard, and it applies to people fighting development near their homes. For Lisa and Nathan Murphy, Not In My Back Yard is more precise. They're fighting a 200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter right beyond their back yard fence.

One weekend last November, Nathan Murphy spotted a bulldozer clearing trails in the broomsedge- and tree-filled vacant land just behind his fence. He trotted out to see what the people -- a man and a woman -- were doing. "I said, `What's going on?' " he recalled this week. "The guy's like, `Yeah, they're putting up a Wal-Mart.'

"The lady said, `I was just looking at those houses and thinking, how tragic.' I told her, `I live in that house.' "

And that was how the Murphys and their neighbors in the Somerset and Hunter Oaks subdivisions learned they're about to be next-door to a 200,000-square-foot behemoth of a big-box.

The Murphys were devastated. They had just moved in in April. Lisa Murphy calls it their "dream house," a $257,000, 3,000-square-foot brick home near Weddington in a subdivision called Somerset, a place advertised as "Majestic in Nature," touted as a "master-planned community." Somerset's developer, Robert C. Rhein Interests, had set aside 20 percent of the land as common open space, preserved wetlands and built trails. Not surprisingly -- given an eco-sensitive sales pitch, a site just outside Mecklenburg in low-tax Union County, yet only 10 minutes from StoneCrest shopping center -- Somerset was a hit.

The Murphys knew the 30-some acres behind their house was zoned for commercial development. But they say real estate agents told them the field contained wetlands and couldn't be developed except for something small, like a church or day care center. Others were told it would be a small mall with high-end specialty shops.

How could this happen? How could you buy into a "planned unit development," and wake up with a giant Wal-Mart?

There are many answers. Among them is this: The land has been zoned commercial since 1996, so no rezoning is needed. Plus, Union County leaders are belatedly recognizing that their county needs more than low-density residential development if it wants tax revenue to pay for schools, roads and other services.

Many people, few stores

On Wednesday county commissioners heard from a consultant that Union, the state's second-fastest-growing county, has the region's second-lowest amount of retail space. A 24-hour Wal-Mart drawing from 10 miles around might not look bad to county leaders who don't have to look at it over breakfast.Another reason is this: As in many places, Union County's business zoning until recently didn't limit store size at all or make many design demands. Most such business zonings, including Charlotte's, were written long before U.S. retailing began metastasizing into grim warehouse-like boxes with parking lots so oceanic they attract flocks of sea gulls.

Stores that large simply can't be good neighbors, no matter what they promise. But if zoning allows them, neighbors have little recourse.

Lisa Murphy remembers attending a meeting where Wal-Mart showed its plans. "Just looking at the plans made me start bawling," she says. She grew determined to figure out how it could happen and how to stop it.

County plan has different vision

The county's land use plan for the area calls for neighborhood-scale shopping, under 120,000 square feet. The site, 31 acres at the corner of Tom Short Road and the not-yet-finished Rea Road Extension, is three-fourths of a mile from a proposed 500,000-square-foot Charlotte retail development, Landon, just up Rea Road.

Last May the county changed its B-2 rules, capping any retail on a B-2 site at 120,000 square feet. But in September, developers First Carolina Investors (Providence Country Club's developer, which at the time owned the Wal-Mart site) and Pavilion, which had contracted to buy it, asked for permission to develop it under the old B-2 rules. The county quickly said OK.

That decision may give Wal-Mart's opponents their best shot. Lisa Murphy spent her vacation reading county documents in Monroe and lunch hours reading the N.C. General Statutes at the library. Then the Murphys appealed that grandfathering decision by Union County land use administrator Donald Keziah.

The appeal will be heard by the county's zoning board of adjustment, an appointed board that hears evidence and rules on the facts in a quasi-judicial setting. A hearing isn't likely until April.

Their lawyer, Anthony Fox, whose other clients include the town of Weddington, won't say much about the case. Keziah and other county officials have been told not to comment.

The legal issues are complex, involving terms such as "vested rights," but when I ran it all past David Owens, professor of public law at the Institute of Government at Chapel Hill, his conclusion was: "It sounds like a fairly complicated mess but one for which the neighbors have a fighting chance."

Meanwhile, new home sales have plunged in the unbuilt part of Somerset. Bob Ohmann, president of St. Lawrence Homes, the builder doing that phase, says, "It's a very unfortunate thing for us, and also the homeowners." He says 35 lots are unsold, plus three houses whose purchasers backed out after hearing the news.

Jim Medall of Rhein, who developed Somerset, says his company isn't taking a position, although he thinks Wal-Mart could be a conscientious neighbor. He says Rhein's Somerset property is almost sold out and hasn't been affected by the flap.

Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris, in Connecticut, says the company offers to build a 10-foot sound wall behind the property, plus extra landscaping and screening. He says it can even ask its architects for a unique design, so it's not your off-the-shelf Wal-Mart. (Wal-Mart has architects?)

The folks in Somerset and Hunter Oaks are livid. They're mad at Wal-Mart. They're mad at developers. They're mad at real estate agents. And they're mad at Union County government. And you know? I'd say they have good reason to be mad at all of them.