Vancouver

Vancouver City Council flashes the green light to Wal-Mart  

Blinded by big money, NPA bends over en masse: apparently Wal-Mart is good for small business, and reduces traffic!

by Kevin Potvin  

Vancouver City Council voted the night of Monday, July 17 in favour of retaining Highway Oriented Retail zoning for the lands south of Marine Drive roughly between Cambie and Main streets. The 6-5 split decision clears the way for Wal-Mart, amongst others, including Canadian Tire, to resubmit applications to build big box retail stores on their property there, after having been rejected by the previous City Council in 2005. In presenting his motion to Council to retain big box retail zoning in the area, Peter Ladner, representing the Non-Partisan Association [NPA] on this issue, said “we know from our retail study” that hardship to nearby small independent retailers “is not going to happen” when the big box retailers arrive. Wal-Mart’s proposal last year was for a 131,000 square foot store; the average independent retailer in the area is about 1/100th that size.

Ladner further suggested that more customers of big box retailers will use public transit, bicycles, or foot to arrive and to carry their purchases home than critics think, and he downplayed the effects on traffic and pollution those critics have warned about. “I use a bike,” he intoned to Council, “and I can tell you that big bags of clothes from a store is among the easier things to carry on a bike.”

Suzanne Anton, also representing the NPA, echoed those sentiments, suggesting that shoppers who will frequent the big box stores on Marine Drive will use public transit: “When there’s good transit, why would you take a car?” she happily chirped to a disbelieving Denning Smith, who was at Council Chambers on behalf of Better Environmentally Sound Transportation [BEST].

Kim Capri, NPA, voted for big box zoning on Marine Drive as well, calling the decision “pro transit” and a good, balanced approach. B C Lee, also of the NPA, called the big box retailing model “environmentally friendly and transportation friendly.”

Earlier in the evening, Council opened up the floor to hear from members of the public for their views of the proposed zoning. Instead, Peter Jackman, representing the Vancouver Board of Trade, appeared on the list and said that opening up Vancouver to big box retailers like Walmart would actually cut down on traffic and pollution: As things stand now, “Vancouver residents must travel to other municipalities to shop at large-format retail stores,” he said. He also said stores like Walmart are good for small businesses: “Large-format retail stores could enhance local businesses by drawing more customers to their area.”

Jay Byfield, who is owner of South Vancouver Mini Public Storage suggested that massively increased traffic along the Marine Drive corridor could actually be good for nearby residents since “more traffic will slow down traffic.” In any event, he said, the worries of small businesses were not for City Council to concern itself with: “It is not Council’s responsibility to protect small business” from giant predatory global corporations, he said. Well, he didn’t use those words exactly.

Gordon Harris, an urban planning consultant, told Council a big box retail zone on Marine Drive is a “sustainable development” plan because “it concentrates all that retail traffic in the one area.”

Stephen Knight, whose real estate consultancy company works with major retailers to locate new store locations, said Vancouver suffers from a deficit of retail space, stating, for example, that because Reitman’s has 60 stores in Western Canada, it ought to have between 8 to 10 stores in Vancouver, if the city had enough available retail space. (Reitman’s has no stores in Vancouver.)

In two special Council sessions comprising seven hours of discussions with speakers both corporate and private, and in Councilors questioning of those speakers and City staff, as well as in City staff’s opening remarks about the issue, never once were the words “Kyoto” or “Accord” mentioned. Nor did anyone explicitly connect big box-oriented retail to the burning of greenhouse gasses by their car-borne customers. Only once, and only briefly, did one Councilor, COPE’s David Cadman, make mention of Peak Oil regarding the future of gasoline-powered car travel to and from such stores.

No one mentioned that investment analysts have serious doubts about the medium-term future of big box retailers because of rising gasoline prices, doubts that have plunged the value of stock in Walmart down 25% in recent months, in lock step with the rising price of oil on international markets.

Scant attention was paid by NPA Councilors to concerns raised by members of the public and representatives of environmental and traffic-related organizations to past City Council-stated commitments to try creating and supporting small and numerous neighbourhood shopping districts. On the contrary, the NPA’s Ladner expressed serious concerns instead about what he perceives as Council’s obligations to massive transnational corporations who purchase land, speculating on their ability to locate branches of their stores on it.

Walmart operates over 5,000 stores worldwide, generating over $300 billion in revenue, and is the biggest company in the world. Lately, it has been adding 50 million square feet of new retail space to its overall operations, annually—or the equivalent of a store like the one proposed for Marine Drive, added every single day of the year. In an Economist article in 2004, it was pointed out that in a Phoenix, Arizona suburban area, “On a single 20-mile stretch of road sit six giant Wal-Marts. Shoppers have 14 more Wal-Marts to pick from a few miles further south and east. The area, says [company president] Mr Schoewe, with obvious pride, ‘shows you what can happen.’”