The Fort Worth Zoning Commission voted 7-2 this morning to deny Walmart the rezoning of a site at Hemphill and Berry streets, where it wants to raze a church-owned community center and build a Walmart Neighborhood Market.
Commissioners said they were troubled by the idea of setting a “precedent” in granting Walmart waivers it wants on the site, after neighborhood leaders said the company’s overall plan would hurt the city’s Hemphill/Berry Urban Village design for the area. Walmart is the first developer to seek waivers in the district since the city approved the urban village several years ago.Neighborhood leaders said they want the Walmart Neighobrhood Market, but want it to better fit the urban village plan, which calls for old-style buildings that hug street fronts and sport lots of windows that highlight activity inside and draw pedestrians in.“I’m very happy about this,” Fernando Florez, representing the Hemphill Corridor Task Force, said after the commission’s decision. “If Walmart wants to pursue this, they know how to get ahold of us.”Tom Galbreath, representing Dunaway Associates, a Fort Worth consulting firm representing Walmart on the case, said “we’ll report back to Walmart” what happened at the hearing.“Tune in for Tuesday,” he said after the vote The Fort Worth City Council will consider the case at its Tuesday meeting.Dunaway also represented Walmart in a second zoning case that came up at the Fort Worth commission, immediately after the Hemphill/Berry vote.The board voted unanimously to approve a zoning change at a site at 2221-2235 Jacksboro Highway, where Walmart plans a 182,000-square-foot super center.Only one home is in the path of the project. Homeowner James Pollard, who lives on Quail Trail behind where the store is planned, told commissioners he supported Walmart’s plans, but wanted assurances from the commission that the new zoning on the tract would prevent any “undesirable” businesses from going in should Walmart sell some of the property or decide not to go through with its plans.“I’m my own urban village,” Pollard said. “We have a lot of respect for Walmart, but if Walmart decided not to go in there, that’s my concern.”In the Hemphill/Berry case, the layout of the site was a huge problem for Walmart from the beginning.Walmart has an L-shaped site at the southwest corner of the intersection under contract from Travis Avenue Baptist Church. Immediately at the corner is a small shopping center, anchored by a rental store, that Walmart representatives say hasn’t been for sale.That made pushing Walmart’s planned store up to Berry Street to comply with mixed-use setback rules impossible with a conventionally designed store.And although Walmart re-designed the building plan with a corner entry facing the intersection, and tinkered with windows and other architectural elements that met the city’s requirements for the percentage of glass required on the Berry and Hemphill exterior walls, it wasn’t enough.Walmart was seeking four waivers from mixed use zoning: the ability to put the parking lot in front of the building, an exception to the 20-foot maximum setback rule, the right to build a rear wall to screen the truck delivery lane, and an exception to a requirement that it screen the loading dock.There are no objective criteria for determining when such waivers can be granted, leaving it up to the zoning commissioners. The Zoning Commission denied Walmart’s request for a mixed use, planned development zoning that would have granted the waivers.Neighborhood leaders said they were worried that Walmart might buy the shopping center at the corner, raze the building, and build a gas station there.“If that’s allowed, that would kill the urban village,” Sandra Dennehy, chairman of the Berry Street Initiative, which opposed the rezoning, told zoning commissioners.Dennehy proposed Walmart set aside a “panhandle”-shaped piece of the site at the northwest corner fronting Berry Street as a park, and agree to replat it, ensuring other development groups know the site is potentially available for redevelopment. Galbreath, in response to a question from a zoning commissioner, said Walmart needs the area for parking.Dennehy also proposed the city rezone the corner rental center property to mixed-use 2, requiring a minimum two-story for new construction. That would likely preclude gas stations and fastfood restaurants, Dennehy said.Dennehy said Walmart’s latest design plan for the store could also be better.“Yes, it’s an improvement, but this version just meets the standards and requirements of the current zoning,” she told the zoning commission. “It is nothing more.”Galbreath, in his presentation to the zoning commission, said the urban village plans allow for flexibility. He compared the Hemphill/Berry site, and what the company is asking for, to the tearing down of part of the old Montgomery Ward site on West Seventh Street in Fort Worth, and the construction of a Target store behind the historic building that fronts the boulevard.“This is flexibility, and this is how redevelopment occurs,” he said.Galbreath also showed numbers that showed little commercial real estate sales transactions in the urban village area in recent years, and pressed the case for Walmart as a catalyst.Christopher Bonilla, a Fort Worth land development consultant who grew up in the Hemphill area, told the commission the Walmart store would spur development, broaden the tax base, and bring needed goods and services into the Hemphill/Berry neighborhoods.“I feel it’s a good idea for the community, and I don’t believe there’s any other major retailer that’s shown the interest,” he said after the vote.Zoning commissioners, in their remarks after Commissioner Gaye Reed moved to deny the rezoning, wondered how long the city should let the urban village percolate before considering exceptions. The city has 16 urban villages. Opponents of the rezoning said community leaders in the nearby Berry/Riverside Urban Village were watching the Walmart case closely.“It takes awhile to cook an urban village,” Commissioner Robert West said.Vice Chairman Ann Zadeh, who seconded Reed’s motion, said “we typically take into account public input. I have a hard time telling them (neighborhood leaders) that this was all for not."Commissioner Charles Edmonds, in supporting the rezoning, said, “I hate to be the contrarian on the commission. I think there’s a case to be made that the neighborhoods want a place to go shopping...I’m at the point where I’d like to see some development, period.”Scott Nishimura, (817) 390-7808 Twitter: JScottNishimuraScott Nishimura, (817) 390-7808
