From a statement released by Wal-Mart today:

Portland, Ore. (June 20, 2007) - "We're proud of the store we proposed for Gresham, a contemporary, compact, urban design (see conceptual drawings at www.walmart-oregon.com), that would have made it one of the most unique Wal-Mart stores in the Northwest. The Gresham store would have greatly improved the area's shopping options, provided high-quality new jobs and increased tax revenue to the community."

"Although LUBA previously remanded the City of Gresham's Hearings Officer's decision to reject our application for a store on West Powell Boulevard, after careful review Wal-Mart has decided not to appeal to LUBA the Hearings Officer's remand decision denying our application. It is unfortunate that this custom designed store will not be built. It was supported by the City planning staff and local residents, and satisfied all the land use approval criteria except for one traffic issue that was not discussed during the hearings process."

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From the city of Gresham's web site:

Today the City’s Hearings Officer Joe Turner issued a denial on Wal-Mart’s application to build a supercenter at 182nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard. In April the Land Use Hearings Board remanded the decision back to the City’s hearings officer. This decision reaffirms his November 16, 2006 decision that denied the application.

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From the city of Gresham's web site:

Today LUBA issued a Final Opinion and Order on cases 2006-224/225 remanding the decision regarding Wal-Mart’s appeal regarding their application to build a supercenter at 182nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard back to City’s Hearings Officer Joe Turner.

According to LUBA, the Hearings Officer "misunderstood" Wal-Mart’s arguments regarding the opponents’ travel time analysis. LUBA decided that because of the technical nature of this issue and not knowing the extent to which the Hearings Officer’s decision to deny was based on his misunderstanding, it is best remand the decision back to the Hearings Officer. This will allow the Hearings Officer to evaluate his decision based on the correct understanding of Wal-Mart’s argument regarding travel time analysis and signal coordination.

The Hearings Officer has 90 days from the issue date of the order to make a final decision. LUBA did not dictate that the Hearings Office accept additional evidence or hold another hearing in this matter. The parties have 21 days from today to file an appeal with the Court of Appeal on LUBA’s final opinion and order.

LUBA’s report is available at the City’s Web site here: http://www.ci.gresham.or.us/w-m/20070404LUBAdecision.pdf

Site Editor's note: the headline is from the newspaper story, not from me.

Issue heads back to Gresham’s hearing officer

By Chad Abraham

The Gresham Outlook, Apr 6, 2007
Original story, including reader comments, here.

Wal-Mart's stubborn effort to build a store at an unpopular site in Gresham was rewarded Thursday, April 5, when the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals sided with the conglomerate in its dispute with the city and neighbors.

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The decision on the Wal-Mart at 182nd/Powell is expected today.

It will be posted on LUBA's web site.

I'll also post information here as soon as I can.

The decision by the Land Use Board of Appeals was expected on March 22nd. However, LUBA requested an extension and the city of Gresham granted the extension.

The decision is now due out April 5th.

I think Gresham First had a great write-up on the happenings at the appeal. It is copied below:

Oral arguments were heard on February 22 before the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals in Salem. LUBA is like an appellate court, and is not a political body. A LUBA appeal challenges the legal sufficiency of a local government’s decision. (By law, local decision makers can choose which evidence they wish to believe, so long as the evidence they rely on is "substantial evidence." Substantial evidence is evidence that a reasonable person could rely on to support a conclusion.)

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From the city of Gresham:

GRESHAM, Ore. -- On August 4, an appeal of the City of Gresham decision regarding Wal-Mart’s application to build a store at 182nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard was filed jointly by three Gresham neighborhood associations – Centennial, Southwest and Hollybrook – and Gresham First.

The decision on the Wal-Mart application was approval with conditions. The decision was appealable by citizens or neighborhood associations that supplied comments during the designated comment period of May 11-25, 2006 and/or by the applicant. The appeal period ran 12 days beginning with the issuance of the decision on July 27 and ending August 8, 2006.

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The comment period on Wal-Mart's new application ends tomorrow: Thursday, May 25th.

To send your comments via e-mail, click here.

From the city of Gresham:

Today the City deemed Wal-Mart’s application to build a Supercenter at 182nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard complete.

When an application is deemed complete, the City has the information necessary to review a development to determine if it complies, or can comply with the standards and criteria of the City’s Development Code. The date of application completeness also marks the start of the official review period, which lasts 120 days. The 120 days includes time allotted for a local appeal to a Hearings Officer.

The next step in the process is sending out a notice for the public comment period. The City expects the notice to be mailed on May 11. The public will have 14 days from the date on the notice to submit written comments to the file. If individual who submits a comment wishes to receive notice of the final decision by mail, their comments must include a legible name and address

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