'Superblock' Wal-Mart opponents combine for blitz

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Ke'eaumoku area residents and a local labor union are mounting a last-minute attempt to block or at least reduce the size of Wal-Mart's planned 317,000-square-foot big-box retail complex on the Ke'eaumoku "superblock," opponents of the project say.

It is an unusual combination of grass-roots community activism and sophisticated advocacy by a union that says it is worried about its members' jobs and the quality of life near the project.

Jim Becker, a 76-year-old retired war correspondent, typed out petition forms while his wife, Betty, and others from the high-rise condominium neighborhood near the site went down to the city streets with steno pads in hand to count the number of cars passing by.

A California-based consultant for the United Food & Commercial Workers Union, AFL-CIO, arranged to fly in today with a land-use lawyer from the University of California-Berkeley and a professional engineer from Southern California to assail the project at a community meeting at Makiki Christian Church on Pensacola Street at 6 p.m. this evening.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said last night that she's seen that show before, in situations on the Mainland where she says the union has tried to block Wal-Mart stores because it couldn't get their employees to join.

But Lin insists that Wal-Mart has been listening to and responding to community concerns about traffic and other issues, and will continue to do so even as it seeks the first permits for the combination Wal-Mart and Sam's Club supercenter it plans to open in spring 2004.

Mayor Jeremy Harris' office said yesterday that Wal-Mart applied for grading and foundation permits last week, but that he will ask that the Planning and Permitting Department take a fresh look at 11th-hour professional critiques which say Wal-Mart has underestimated traffic and other concerns.

Some community members, along with UF&CW Local 480 and planning experts at the University of Hawai'i, say the entire project should be halted at least until Wal-Mart submits an environmental impact statement.

The city has taken the position that Wal-Mart has the right, under existing "community business mixed use" zoning, to proceed with construction on the 10-acre site by simply obtaining required building permits.

But the group formed by Becker, called Citizens Against Reckless Development (CARD), has filed an appeal with Harris, the city council and the zoning board of appeals. The group, which says 1,000 area residents have signed petitions against the project, says that the double-decker Wal-Mart Discount Store and Sam's Club Warehouse (both owned by Wal-Mart) is a "big-box behemoth" that goes far beyond the mix of retail and business and residential uses contemplated by the zoning.

Pat Loo, president of Local 480, said yesterday that even reducing the size of the stores could reduce the loss of union jobs while providing some relief from traffic and pollution that he says threaten the neighborhood.

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.