|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
Press Releases
Vox Clamantis
By Elliott Carr
Zone It and They Will Come, Big Box or Small
As Cape Cod’s economy swells and attracts
the covetous eyes of large off-Cape retail chains, the
attraction is not always reciprocal. In Chatham, everyone in
town seems opposed to Ocean State Job Lot’s plans to move
into a vacant former A & P store, except for the locals
the discount store has hired
to represent them. Ocean State’s prices are low; the store
might attract bottom-picking shoppers from
other towns. The process resembles the retail equivalent of
developers attempting to build affordable housing in the middle
of upscale residential neighborhoods — retail welfare
at the end of Chatham’s
Main Street.
In Hyannis, the Smart Planning and Growth Committee’s
advertisement asks, "Could somebody please explain
to us why [big box stores are] a good thing for our community?"
as Wal-Mart opens in Falmouth and BJ’s Wholesale Club
and Home Depot propose stores in Hyannis. Felicia Penn, the
group’s executive director, says such stores represent
"corporate colonization," an "homogenization
of culture" that will inundate the Cape with inventory
to try to take over market share, and "make less contribution
to the
community."
From Eastham to Orleans to Harwich to Brewster and Sandwich,
opponents harass Dunkin Donuts franchises, however small. Name
recognition is unfair competition; the well-recognized gaudy
sign is degrading; discarded cups litter roads.
All communities suffer as large chains displace local stores.
"It’s a fact," another Smart Planning and Growth
Coalition advertisement reads, "The average foreign-owned
business returns up to 16% of
their revenues in dividends to the local community through payroll
and taxes, while the average locally owned business returns
up to 60%. Now you know who really has your interests at heart."
Although
chain stores attract considerable numbers of customers to their
large inventory and low prices wherever they go, once they control
the local market they become less consumer friendly. By displacing
local stores they deprive communities of important leadership.
All the national chains selling haberdashery won’t do
as much for Cape Cod communities in a century as Puritan Clothing’s
Penn family does in a year. But Cape Cod retailers are schizophrenic
when it comes to competition and new stores. Too often, what
side they occupy depends on whose lumber and donuts will be
sold. Chatham’s gift purveyors
lurk behind the opposition to Ocean State, the Cape’s
existing hardware and lumber dealers behind concerns about Home
Depot, and existing donut shops oppose Dunkin Donuts. All have
difficulty
defining what is really bad. One retailer I know dislikes Ocean
State Job Lot and Cape Cod-owned
Christmas Tree Shops, which he says copies quality merchandise
made by local artists, then reproduces
cheaper imitations utilizing Asian manpower. But he buys his
shirts at Lands End discount sales when he can. In these days
when free trade has become a global issue, it is hypocritical
and ludicrous to think Cape Cod can become an island prohibiting
foreign stores. Cape Cod originates only a minuscule
portion of the essentials we consume. Indeed the proportion
of goods consumed and cash spent on
Cape Cod generated elsewhere is probably as high as anywhere
in the United States. Yet like trolls controlling a bridge,
some merchants want to close their market to off-Cape retailers,
but not off-Cape goods. For much of the 20th century, many Cape
Codders made their living selling T-shirts to "foreign"
tourists. This resulted in the largest zoning mistake in Cape
Cod history, zoning every mile of road some
tourist might drive by for retail use. As a result we have far
more land zoned — and used — for retail than communities
elsewhere.
If you zone retail, stores will come. Cape Cod continually gets
inundated with new stores. The Cape doesn’t need one more
acre of stores, but hundreds of acres from Truro to Bourne remain
open
to that use.
Our vision does not include more retail and more services, since
these sectors traditionally pay below a sustainable wage. Over
one third of the cape's population (other's say this figure
is much higher) is employed in these sectors. It doesn't make
economic sense to propagate more of these jobs, since the wages
cannot sustain our population. In addition, there is already
over 11 million square feet of retail selling space just in
the Town of Barnstable, which means that each "eligible
customer" has over 240 square feet of space within which
to shop. The national average is 10-20 square feet. Our vision
of the Cape does not include more retail, because we are already
saturated, and our workers deserve an opportunity to earn more.
Our vision of the Cape does include the support of health care
as our biggest and strongest industry.., one where the new Cape
Cod Healthcare Ambulatory Center and other medical services
are clustered together. In this area, there may also be supportive
medical facilities, research labs, pharmaceutical facilities,
assisted living centers, clustered residential development,
small businesses to support the workers and residents, a shuttle
service to the food markets and all-ready-exisiting shopping
centers, and places for alternative transportation (bicycle
paths, and bus stops). A Cape Cod where there is a base of well-trained,
well-paid workers here to support the above industries, and
where the Cape becomes known not just for having the busiest
emergency room in the State, but for being the most desireable
place to relocate for employment in medical support services
and research.
Occasionally Cape towns are forced to buy out their zoning mistakes,
as when Dennis recently purchased land to stop a supermarket
from locating there. If the town didn’t want the supermarket,
it would have been cheaper to change the zoning years before.
Does Truro really want the mile of 6A it has zoned commercial
to look like Eastham a few years from now? The only certain
and fair way to stop retail sprawl — both big box stores
and small shops — is to limit retail zoning to tasteful
pedestrian-oriented villages built years ago like Chatham and
Provincetown, and strategically placed automobile-oriented shopping
centers. We probably already have enough of both; the future
need is for refurbishing and rebuilding, which will provide
enough entry opportunity sites for new stores.
The time has come for most Cape towns to eliminate unused and
unnecessary commercially zoned space, starting with the roadsides
we drive by every day. Roads are built to provide transportation
— a process impeded by both native T-shirt and foreign
big box stores.
"Copyright 2002, The Cape Cod Voice, all
rights reserved. Reproduced by permission."
|
|
|
