Too big, too close

On April 5, Wal-Mart presented to the Planning Board a sketch plan of what it proposes to build on the Saunders property. It was distressing to learn that despite all the long-term and well-known hard work undertaken by the City Council and Planning Board to develop standards and guidelines for large retail development next to neighborhoods, Wal-Mart ignored most of them. The elephant-sized building they propose is more than twice the size of anything we have ever seen in Westbrook, and does not comply with the standards, which have been scheduled for public hearing on April 26.

Wal-Mart proposes to put this more than 200,000-square-foot structure as close as 70 feet from some of the residential properties in the adjacent neighborhood, including a Tire & Lube shop abutting Clifford Street. Seventy feet is far less than the distance from home plate to first base! It is much less than the length of a basketball court; it is not even as long as the frontage on many average house lots in Westbrook; and less than the length of some individual buildings (the new public safety building, for example). Think about it.

Wal-Mart has dressed up this elephant with gables and pillars and pretty colors. No matter how many bows and whistles and smiley faces you put on an elephant, it is still an elephant. We realize the presentation was only a sketch plan, but it focused almost entirely on facade and aesthetics. Are we supposed to believe that the gables and pillars and pretty colors will in some magic way reduce the corresponding trucks, fumes, lights, and horrendous traffic? That is what the standards are designed to do.

Thank you in advance to the Westbrook City Council and Planning Board for not being influenced by this show, and for adopting and enforcing strong limits and guidelines to protect our neighborhoods.