County Board Approves Wal-mart Special Permit At Wilderness
The BOS vote was the final step in an approval process that began with the Orange County Planning Commission holding a public hearing before taking a non-binding vote on whether to recommend that Supervisors approve the permit. The day after the BOS vote leaders of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, a group of nine historic preservation groups, sent a letter to Wal-mart CEO Michael Duke urging him “in the strongest possible terms to consider alternative locations in Orange County that would not be so damaging to the county’s most visited tourist attraction and one of the most important Civil War battlefields in the nation.” The Coalition had not received a reply by presstime, according to Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) spokesman Jim Campi. “We’re seriously considering the legal option,” he said. “Our deadline for legal action is Sept. 24.” As for how or where the BOS decision might be legally contested, County Attorney Sharon Pandak declined to comment in a phone interview. “Anything that you would ask me to do that might result in a challenge against the Board of Supervisors, I cannot provide you advice on as the County Attorney. It’s just not ethical for me to do that.”
Planning Board Votes The Planning Commission held another public hearing on Aug. 20, this time preceded by the requisite published notices. After 100 minutes spent listening to 33 speakers — who split 21 against and 11 for Wal-mart, and one who never clearly stated her position — the Planning Commission voted 4-4 to recommend approval of the permit. County Attorney Pandak explained that according to the Code of Virginia, a majority vote of those present who voted was required for the commission to officially take an action. Therefore, the tie vote resulted in no official action on the permit. However, Pandak said the commission’s bylaws state “if there is no majority vote, the recommendation is one of denial.” “There is this disconnect between the bylaws and the Code of Virginia,” Pandak said. She later asserted, “We are in uncharted grounds.” Either way, instead of the Planning Commission’s affirmative vote from the legally flawed May 21 meeting, the vote was now a tie. No commissioners had changed their votes, there was just a different subset of the 10 commissioners present. Whether interpreted by state code as “no action taken” or by commission bylaws as a denial of the permit, Wal-mart seemed to have lost this round in the fight. The Planning Commission meeting the next evening on Aug. 21 turned the vote of Aug. 20 on its head. Though not clearly announced at the conclusion of the Aug. 20 meeting, the commission already had a legally advertised meeting scheduled for the following day. The Aug. 21 date was set back in July when the flawed hearing was rescheduled, in the words of its official resolution, “in anticipation of the possibility of needing additional time to consider and vote on the application.” As Chairman Will Likins explained when he proposed the idea, “If we finish business on the 20th, as chairman, I’ll cancel the meeting on the 21st. If we don’t, we’re already set.” On Aug. 20, following the completion of the public hearing, the Planning Commission’s vote, and the adjournment of the meeting, apparently not many people realized that the meeting the following day was still going to be held. One highly interested observer, CWPT’s Campi, said he only learned about the meeting at 4 p.m. that day. The Aug. 21 Planning Commission meeting was held as scheduled and a new mix consisting of six of the 10 commissioners voted 5-1 to approve Wal-mart’s application. Again, none of them changed their vote, it was just a different combination of commissioners than on the previous day. The August 21 Planning Commission meeting must have been virtually unknown to the media, because no national wire service and only one of the Central Virginia newspapers ran a story about it, and that was six days later. The only other mention this reporter could find of it was in the August 25 entry, “If at first you don’t succeed, vote again,” in the blog maintained by the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, and in a reader’s comment on another historic preservation blog.
Supervisors Vote Some of the activity was outdoors, where members of the 10th Virginia Cavalry paraded in front of the meeting site accompanied by two demonstrators carrying pro-Wal-mart signs. Robert E. Lee himself, in the person of Al Stone, spoke against the project at the hearing. Speaker Claudia Bayliff revealed she and her brother, Gregory, who was with her, were part-owners of the land Wal-mart wanted to purchase for the new store. Bayliff said her late father was the original managing partner of 3 and 20 Limited Partnership, which bought the tract 30 years ago. “When he died in 1999, the bulk of his interest passed to his seven children, so I’m representing the seven of us,” she said. According to publicly available tax assessment records, the 51.55 acres owned by 3 and 20 Limited Partnership is assessed for $1,771,900. Bayliff said the contract with Wal-mart was signed three years ago. The land has been zoned for commercial use for more than 35 years, and it had been on the market “on and off for probably close to 20 years,” Bayliff said. “We would have been more than happy to sell it to any Hollywood filmmaker, any Hollywood star, any preservation group that expressed an interest, but that has not been the case,” she said. (Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall spoke on May 4 at Ellwood Manor on the Wilderness Battlefield urging opposition to Wal-mart’s plans for the store.) “We have been good corporate citizens of Orange County. We have paid our taxes and patiently waited for your decision,” Bayliff told the BOS. Having heard from all the speakers, BOS Chairman Lee Frame declared the public hearing closed just before 10:30 p.m. After about an hour of remarks by three of the five supervisors, the BOS examined and amended the roughly five pages of conditions attached by the Planning Commission to the permit Wal-mart sought, in dialogue with Thomas C. Kleine, the lead Wal-mart attorney. The big BOS vote finally took place an hour and 25 minutes later at 12:55 a.m. The three supervisors who had publicly announced support for Wal-mart since early 2009 - Mark Johnson, Zack Burkett and Teel Goodwin – voted accordingly. Chairman Frame publicly expressed his view for the first time and voted for Wal-mart. Teri Pace alone voted against the permit in keeping with her public position for many months. It was 4-1 for the retail giant. What happens next for Wal-mart if the special use permit received BOS approval was outlined by Kleine for the Planning Commission: get its site plan (with all the engineering details) approved; acquire building permits; acquire Virginia Dept. of Transportation access permits; close on the property; put the site plan out for bidding; award the contract to build, culminating in the construction of the store and its environs. Kleine said the actual construction should take a year, but this does not include time for the prior permit and plan approvals.
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