Opposition to Whole Foods

Try that Mexico City air quality, and get back to us.

 

And this is not opposition to Whole Foods, it's opposition to box stores.

 

They were teaching about this stuff over 25 years ago:

 

This is an interesting situation, and glad you posted it . . .

But Nikki Haley remains full of shit, in that: asking the public to "trust business", after 2008, the Gilded Age, the late 20s, BP, Exxon, ad nauseum, is presuming the suckers will never learn. They've learned.

 

Does this neighborhood look like it could not handle some extra traffic?

http://bit.ly/xnq51q

We're not talking about some quiet, tree lined street. It's an industrial area.

And, 250 parking spots is not overwhelming. The Whole Foods a block from my house has 400 parking spaces. There's certainly been an uptick in traffic, but there aren't traffic jams as a result.

Whole Foods would not have an interest in building a store people could not get to.

 

Look at the map. This area is not crowded. It would be a destination store that would create jobs and additional investment in the neighborhood.

It's adjacent to a Superfund site. They cleaned up toxic waste to develop the site. They're going to grow vegetables on the roof.

This is an environmental improvement.

It's traffic and idling cars that causes pollution. They're building 250 parking spots so drivers won't be cruising for parking.

 

And if they can show all those things to the satisfaction of the zoning board, I'm sure they'll be granted their variance -- a variance they would have been smart to lock down before they sunk money into the site.

 

And idling cars won't be an issue, anyway, since everyone who shops at Whole Foods is an asshole in a Prius.

 

I am thinking of opening a grocery story called Partial Foods - do you think I'll get sued?

 

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Yards project was first approved in 2006 and it's taken nearly six years for the Barclays Center to be built.

And the government got involved in that one too. Only, they seized landowners' properties by eminent domain. To give to developers, for their own profits. Which, allegedly, will create permanent jobs (One of them, for a point guard, may open this summer).

As Ragu might put it, the government picks winners and losers. They've done it for Atlantic Yards, in which the little guy lost. And if they vote against Whole Foods, it may be seen as a win for the little guy.

 

I don't have a lot of patience with Whole Foods' argument, as I understand it. The firm invested in the property/cleanup with the expectation that a variance would be granted. Sorry, you pays your nickels and you takes your chances.* On the other hand, if the firm was told, explicitly, that the price of the variance was the cleanup, etc., and that was put in writing (which I seriously doubt), I have a bit more sympathy.

This story does touch on that "tragedy of the uncommons" dynamic I mentioned in another thread. A possible outcome is that the site is never developed, making all those "stakeholders" poorer than they otherwise would have been.

*You can bet your sweet bippie that the willingness of other firms to take flyers on dicey property has taken a hit, though.

 

Would any be complaining if this was Wal Mart being denied?

You allow one box, you start allowing all of them.

I have two words that will solve this problem. Trader Joe's