Wal-Mart proposal returns to Planning Board Monday

The public hearing on a controversial application to build a Wal-Mart store at 1060-1100 Spruce St. will continue Monday night before the Planning Board.

By: Lea Kahn
   The public hearing on a controversial application to build a Wal-Mart store at 1060-1100 Spruce St., on the site of two former car dealerships, will continue Monday night before the Planning Board.
   The 7:30 p.m. meeting will be held in the Training Room at the Lawrence Township Municipal Court and Police Department Building, across the parking lot from the Municipal Building.
   The initial public hearing was held last month, but the Planning Board did not complete it, causing the applicant to return to the Planning Board next week.
   Arkansas-based Wal-Mart wants to build a 143,233-square-foot store — including an 8,654-square-foot garden center — on the 23.5-acre lot. Two used-car dealerships that occupy the site would be torn down and replaced with the new building.
   Wal-Mart is seeking preliminary and final site plan approval for the new store. There would be parking for 725 cars, of which 67 would be banked — or not constructed — unless necessary.
   The proposal under consideration by the Planning Board is the third submitted by Wal-Mart since 2004. Two earlier plans were reviewed by the Planning Board Screening Committee and sent back for revisions.
   The application is seeking a stream buffer variance, because part of the proposed northern driveway and portions of the proposed parking area and loading area are within the 100-foot stream buffer. The West Branch of the Shabakunk Creek borders the property.
   Wal-Mart’s proposal has drawn the ire of neighbors in Ewing, Lawrence and Trenton. Soon after the initial application was filed in 2004, the opponents banded together to form LET’s Stop Wal-Mart.
   Much of LET’s Stop Wal-Mart’s opposition is centered on Wal-Mart’s refusal to allow its employees to join a labor union. The group twice asked Township Council to adopt a living-wage ordinance in an effort to force Wal-Mart to raise its employees’ salaries and provide them with better fringe benefits. Both times, the council declined to act.
   Undaunted, the Lawrence Living Wage Coalition — some of whose members also belong to LET’s Stop Wal-Mart — gathered more than 1,000 signatures last year on a petition to require Township Council to act on a proposed living-wage ordinance.
   On the advice of Municipal Attorney Kevin Nerwinski, the council sought a judicial ruling in state Superior Court on the legality of the township imposing its own minimum wage. State Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg ruled in August that a municipality cannot set its own minimum wage.