East Montgomery Residents Protesting New Neighborhood Wal-Mart
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A new neighborhood Wal-Mart and fuel station is coming to the east side of town and residents in that area are outraged. The grocery store is being built near Taylor and Vaughn Road and construction could start fairly soon.
A Public hearing on the issue was held tonight.
“We do we need a Wal-Mart grocery store?”
That question was asked over and over at Thursday afternoon’s planning commission meeting. Gonzalez-Strength & Associates out of Birmingham is the engineering firm behind a soon-to-come neighborhood Wal-Mart, which will sit near Vaughn and Taylor Road, right next to the Dunkin Donuts.
“We knew nothing about this and it gets thrown in our face that we’re going to have a Wal-Mart in our neighborhood,” said resident Robert Sadler.
Residents who live in East Montgomery, many of them who just recently found out about the incoming Wal-mart, came to the meeting to protest it.
“We can barely get out of our neighborhood now,” one resident said.
Resident after resident took to the podium to voice their concerns about traffic and safety.
“We just had a Montgomery police officer not long ago, that was shot at a Wal-Mart,” said a retired law enforcement agent.
Some are questioning the location, which is within a half mile of two other major grocery stores.
“What’s going to happen to Winn-Dixie and what’s going to happen to Publix?” asked Graham Champion. “Are you going to end up with another shopping center with an empty main tenant?”
City Councilman Glen Pruitt says he’s strongly against another neighborhood Wal-Mart coming to town.
“I voted against the one on Federal Drive and if I had a vote on this one, I’d vote against this one.”
But the council will not get to vote on this because the land is already zoned for commercial development. That means Wal-Mart has the green light to move forward.
“This meeting is a waste of time,” Sadler said.
“If there’s going to be a public hearing, input from that public hearing ought to be taken into consideration,” Champion said.
Despite the public outcry, the engineering firm says they will move forward.
“I am prepared to listen to comments and concerns that the citizens do have, but I am not prepared to postpone this action,” said Mark Gonzalez of Gonzalez-Strength & Associates.
In addition to the Wal-Mart neighborhood market, there will also be a fuel station built on the property. Montgomery Water Works has already approved the irrigation plan and there have been no objections from them fire department.
