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Community rejects Wal-Mart in Cedar Mill

Traffic and low-wage jobs just some of the concerns residents have expressed before the world’s largest retailer has even filed its application with the City of Beaverton.

By Abby Sewell

The quiet Beaverton suburb of Cedar Mill might not be a hotbed of anti-corporate activists. But when word got out that a Wal-Mart was planning to move into the neighborhood, hundreds of residents got organized and prepared to resist it. Following the example of other groups around the nation that have successfully opposed Wal-Marts in their communities, a citizen group called Save Cedar Mill is ready to fight the transnational corporation all the way up to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

A small group of neighbors first began to meet several months ago when they heard that the owners of a large vacant lot on the corner of Cedar Hills Blvd. and Barnes Rd. were planning to lease the land to a Wal-Mart. Within a month of their first meeting, the organizers had already incorporated their group as a non-profit, elected a board of directors, and begun raising money to cover legal costs. Since then, over a thousand people have registered as members of Save Cedar Mill, and the group has raised $8000 towards appealing the zoning decision that would allow a Wal-Mart in their neighborhood.

Steve Kaufman, chair of Save Cedar Mill, said that this type of outspoken political activity is new to him and to many of the other members of the group. “It’s truly amazing watching a community come alive and become politically active. It’s been a really humbling experience,” he said.

Many residents are worried about the impact of Wal-Mart on locally owned businesses around it; namely, that it will drive them out of business. Wal-Mart claims that its presence will be beneficial to the stores surrounding it, because the increased flow of shoppers to the area will trickle down to other neighborhood businesses. But a study by University of Iowa economist Kenneth Stone found that in small towns in Iowa where Wal-Marts had opened, after a small initial spike in sales, other retail businesses steadily lost money over the next few years.

If the store goes in, it will bring over 300 jobs with it. However, with most of them being minimum wage jobs with no health insurance, the community will bear the burden of paying for the social services needed by the workers in order to pay for housing, food, and health care. In Washington State, Wal-Mart employees make up the largest single group user of low-income health care services. Meanwhile, the money Wal-Mart saves on labor costs enables it to undercut the prices of competitors who offer decent wages and benefits.

These are serious concerns, but the single biggest issue on every neighbor’s mind is the traffic.

Tami Dean, who has lived in Cedar Mill for 21 years, said, “Traffic in the last 10 years has gone from moderate to really unbearable at peak hours.” People sometimes wait at the intersection through four or five light changes.

Wal-mart is designed to attract shoppers from around the region. With shoppers flocking from all over the Portland area by car, every hour would be a peak traffic hour. Four years ago, the intersection was zoned for commercial/retail stores of any size, which would allow a big box store; but since then, new developments have gone up, the population density in the area has increased, and so has the traffic.

Wal-Mart has not yet filed its application to build with the City of Beaverton. Once the application is filed, the city will have 30 days to decide whether it is complete; after which, there will be a brief period of time in which citizens may submit public comments to the city. However, outside of this limited opportunity for input, the main avenue for citizens to influence the process is by challenging the zoning decision that would allow a big box store on the lot. This is not impossible; it has been done successfully in other communities, both in Oregon and elsewhere. However, it is costly, difficult, and time consuming. Save Cedar Mill estimates that it will take $25,000 to get through the first round of appeals to the Beaverton City Council. All the group’s organizers are volunteers, but they have hired consultants for the legal battle, including a land use attorney and a traffic engineer.

The people of Cedar Mill are learning a hard lesson about how little input citizens really get in the way their cities are developed. In March, Wal-Mart was supposed to hold a meeting with its new potential neighbors. Instead of offering a public forum with room for people to ask questions and voice their concerns publicly, the corporation chose to set up a series of tables with designs and presentations in a room so small that at one point there was a line of four hundred people waiting outside to come in and view the presentation.

The owners of the land in question, a family by the name of Petercourt, who own a large amount of property in the area, have not met with anyone from Save Cedar Mill. And the City of Beaverton is not required to take public input until later in the development process. All of this has left neighbors with a distinct feeling that no one cares what they want for their own neighborhood.

As of press time, Save Cedar Mill was organizing an event called Raise Your Voice for May 17, to talk about specific steps the community can take to stop Wal-Mart.

For more information, see www.savecedarmill.com.

Abby Sewell is freelance writer and regular contributor to the Alliance.