Against Proposition 400

The General Plan is the town’s roadmap to the future. It contains the vision of the community. By changing the General Plan, which the Town Council has done for Walmart, the vision of the community changes to reflect a big box at our gateway.

Walmart did not buy commercial land. They purchased residential land directly abutting a residential neighborhood. The Town granted a General Plan amendment to accommodate them. With one hundred twenty acres of big box commercial on our western border, and not a single tenant, the Town has ignored the current General Plan in favor of spot – zoning.

Recent actions of the Council send a clear message to the citizens; the character of Cave Creek is about to change.

A General Plan amendment on the Walmart property will bring twenty-four hour a day noise, traffic, and lights. It will further congest an already dangerous and overloaded intersection. Even the possibility of it happening has made it impossible for the abutting homeowners to sell their homes. But there’s a bigger picture here; a Council with no respect for private property rights, paving the path to a town very unlike the one you chose to call home.

Good and fair planning created a commercial corridor on the western edge of town allowing an eighty acre buffer between potential development and existing residents. The Olesen Rd. neighbors are not being given the same consideration . Their homes are within one hundred fifty-nine feet of the proposed big box. I doubt that any of the Council members or their friends need to worry about such irresponsible zoning, but obviously the rest of us do. Whose neighborhood will be next?

Silence is acceptance. Vote no.

Grace Meeth