Of Wal-Mart and the OMB

The Ontario Municipal Board is no stranger to the opposition faced by Wal-Mart in rural Ontario. Wal-Mart’s acquisition in 1994 of most of Canada’s Woolco stores had mainly situated them in suburban areas. Given their experience in the US, they knew that they could also play the rural game well. So Wal-Mart has for some time been aggressively chasing the markets of small-town Ontario. However, while Wal-Mart wants nothing more than to make love to rural Ontario, it seems that pretty much every time they make an overture, there is a group of citizens ready to try and rebuff them.

Stratford has been one notable example of this phenomenon. A few weeks ago, their municipal council, after long and highly controversial deliberations, refused to allow the planning amendment required for Wal-Mart to move in. Wal-Mart is now expected to make an appeal to the OMB.

Unfortunately, the usual arguments against allowing Wal-Mart into Ontario's smaller towns, centring on the degradation of local communities and cultures, usually fall on deaf ears at the very business-minded OMB.

An interesting article in the Star recently showed however that a new line of defense against the big box bullies is being tried out. As the people of the town of Port Elgin take on their local Wal-Mart development, they are focusing less on the muddier areas of how the Wal-Mart form of commerce will affect the community, but rather on issues of safety.

This is made possible by the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement issued by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, to which the OMB is obliged to respect. Amongst other things, the 'Statement' claims that "Healthy, liveable and safe communities" are sustained by "avoiding development and land use patterns which may cause environmental or public health and safety concerns."

While clauses like this one are probably intended to cover planning debacles like the Oak Ridges Moraine, they do suddenly make the development of 'safe' space a provincial issue.

The urban designs that tend to go along with big-box developments require large parking-lots that are empty most of the time. These are not safe spaces, goes the argument, and therefore should either be redesigned as safer or disallowed entirely.

I, for one, have never seen this argument levelled against big-box urbanism before, but I like it because of its potential usefulness. Unfortunately, however, the solutions that are being proposed in this instance are rather unsavoury. The experts at the OMB hearing are suggesting that Wal-Mart increase visibility by getting rid of trees that surround the parking lot and increasing the proposed lighting. In the interests of safety, the commercial experience is thus being made both less pleasant and less environmentally sustainable.

While the safety argument against big-box stores is interesting, I think the conclusions are wrong. This sort of urban design as I've seen it practiced throughout the province is fundamentally unhealthy to both the individual and the community. If Wal-Mart wants to integrate itself into the local economy, why can't it also be asked to integrate itself into the local urban fabric rather than landing itself on a huge empty lot on the outside of town?

Surely that would be a better solution for 'public health and safety'.

Photo by ChrisEvans