HomeMy WebLinkAboutMULBERRY AND LEMAY CROSSING - PRELIMINARY - PUD - 36-96B - SUBMITTAL DOCUMENTS - ROUND 1 - Citizen Communication (96) 28 October, 1998
Mr. Robert Davidson
Current Planning
Planning and Zoning Board
City of Fort Collins
1212 Riverside Avenue
PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
Dear Mr. Davidson:
I can guess that everybody is hollering at you, Bob. Comes
with the territory. So will you get mad if I do just a little
hollering, too? I write to express my deep concern (did anybody
ever write to express shallow concern? ) over the proposal to es-
tablish a Super Wal-Mart at the intersection of Lemay and Mul-
berry. Employing the terms of moderation that come naturally to
me, let me assert, with all due respect, that I consider the
proposal a stupid-ass idea of truly archetypal proportions.
We are all, Bob, for economic expansion, growth, and
municipal progress. Fort Collins is arguably the most vibrantly
"alive" city in the entire United States right now, and I suspect
that you would be hard put to find many resident taxpayers who
don 't (Boulder is another kettle of fish) want to keep it that
way.
But one has to be careful . (If it sounds like I am
developing an unsolicited preachment here, I apologize. )
Economic enhancement can turn around and bite you if pursued
indiscriminately--things begin to go sour and dysfunction-
alism becomes the dark flip side of "growth. " My own feeling,
for whatever it 's worth, is that Fort Collins is approaching this
threshold.
We have a railroad running right through the center of
town. How dysfunctional can you get? Growth has, as I am sure
you are aware, been very lopsided, with southward development far
outstripping expansion in any other direction. Like Douglas
County, we are, administratively, beginning to choke on our own
vitality.
Well, Bob, it is in this context of enhancement shading into
dysfunctionlism, that I respectfully ask you to consider the
notion of a Super Wal-Mart at Mulberry and Lemay.
Please consider: the land parcel in question is a stone 's O
throw away, not only from the lovely green meander of the Poudre
River, but from two (count 'em, two ! ) multi-million-dollar,
costly-to-expand, bridges. Consider further that the proposed
site is only two stones ' throw away from an Albertson 's, a Long's
Drug, as well as numerous small business enterprises, all of
which a Super Wal-Mart, like any self-respecting predator, would
suck into fiscal oblivion in two years flat.
Finally, please consider the nightmarish gridlock which
would inevitably ensue if the Board were to give Wal-Mart the
green light. Try driving either East or West on Mulberry, past
the site in question, at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. Multiply
that traffic-jam by one full order of magnitude, and envision the
sprawling six-lane set-up the City would be forced to implement
sooner or later.
It's all enough to make the City 's symbolic and fabled
emblematic Canadian Logo-Goose shit a brick!
Cordially,
Y
Zoel er
ove treet
(970-416-5969; no copies)
RHZ/rhz
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