Wal-Mart debate continues.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

COTTAGE GROVE - In a 5-2 vote, the City Council on Monday night kept alive Wal-Mart's bid to expand into a superstore here.

In what expansion proponents called a win, the council accepted a city staff recommendation to postpone a decision on the discount chain's request to overturn zoning language limiting the store to a maximum "footprint" of 105,000 square feet. They asked Wal-Mart to first obtain a new traffic impact analysis and review by the Oregon Department of Transportation of late changes the company made when pitching plans for a 150,000-square-foot superstore to the council last month.

Councilors Pat Patterson and Robert Hunt voted against the postponement, saying they disliked the evolving nature of Wal-Mart's proposal and preferred to outright reject its application.

"The recommendation of the planning commission was to deny this," Patterson said. "I'm in support of denying it. I have a great deal of concern about any precedent that may be derived from this decision for future land use within the city."

Local farm supply store owner Mary Koepfle echoed that concern after the meeting.

"I'm horribly disappointed that the City Council doesn't have the gumption to support the hard word of their own planning commission," said Koepfle, an early and vocal opponent of the proposed superstore who filed a police report after a Wal-Mart supporter came into her store and shoved and threatened her. "This was about upholding our codes and our ordinances."

But Wal-Mart attorney Greg Hathaway praised the city staff for "carefully considering" and concluding that the spirit of those rules could be satisfied by Wal-Mart's compromise - a 7 percent reduction in its initial 160,000-square-foot proposal and an offer to provide four buildings for smaller, "buffering" businesses along Row River Road.

The council agreed with Community Development Director Howard Schesser, however, that the buffering businesses should not be limited to retail, as Wal-Mart's compromise had proposed. Instead, they asked the retailer to conduct a new traffic study assuming other commercial development takes place - including a "worst-case" traffic generator such as a restaurant.

Hathaway expressed confidence that a new traffic study would show Row River Road could handle the load. Hathaway told Wal-Mart supporters disappointed by the postponement that "we won." That happened despite Schesser telling councilors they could still deny the plan even if ODOT signs off on the additional traffic. Plus, one of the councilors who voted yes, Diane Conrad, made clear that she simply wanted more time to consider Schesser's recommendation. And Councilor Wayne Clark, who made the motion accepting that recommendation, said he did so "just to start the discussion."

"This is a legislative process, this is why we were elected," he said. "Obviously, there's a division in the community. It's up to us to find some equitable solution. I'm very upset that some people in our community have been hassled over this and threatened over this - it's just consumerism we're talking about here."

The city set the 105,000-square-foot limit when it approved the current store - eventually built at 61,000 square feet - in 1994.

The community was also divided over Wal-Mart then, and the council ultimately allowed the current store in its commercial-tourism zone only if lots along Row River Road were reserved for smaller, more overtly tourism-related uses. The road leads from Interstate 5 to lakes, cycling trails and other recreational destinations.

The council decision will reopen Wal-Mart's application to more public testimony. But the new hearing will feature only testimony on traffic issues.

The store's expansion bid has drawn hundreds of people to a series of previous public hearings before the planning commission and the council. Testimony has been sharply divided.

Supporting the expansion are employees of the local store and customers who say Cottage Grove needs its discount groceries and one-stop shopping. Opponents say the company crushes small local businesses and exploits workers - both its own and those around the world who produce its cheap goods.