Plaintiffs say supercenter will hurt property values

The majority of the plaintiffs in the suit against the Polson City Council say the proposed supercenter will hurt their property values due to increased traffic, noise and light pollution, and that they never expected this type of commercial development to spring up when they purchased homes in the Clearview Heights neighborhood.

While they are frustrated with the prospect of a supercenter being placed near their homes, many of the plaintiffs say they regularly shop at the current Wal-Mart and aren't against the supercenter — they just don't want it in their backyard.

"It isn't the venue itself. I'm a supporter of Wal-Mart. We shop there. I buy all my prescription drugs there," said Meredith Pollack, who, along with her husband Donald and more than a half dozen other Clearview neighbors, filed suit against the city a couple of weeks ago.

"It's not that I'm against Wal-Mart, it's just that we are against a superstore in our backyard," she said.

The Pollacks, Richard and Marian Rosa, Peter Stone, Dick Molenda, Marian Mazurek, and Stanley and Dorothy Petersen are all Clearview neighbors, and along with Super 1 owner Greg Hertz and Lake County First, decided to sue to protect their property values. While Hertz has a financial interest in stopping the proposed supercenter, the Clearview residents say they are simply trying to protect their investment.

"I just don't want to have the traffic come to this area. We'd have to fight traffic coming in and out of our development," said Bob Mazurek, who is supporting his wife in the suit but is not listed as a plaintiff. "I'm also concerned about what might come onto the property adjacent to the Wal-Mart [supercenter] property."

Mazurek said he, too, shops at the current Wal-Mart, and said company officials seem sincere in their efforts to reduce noise and light pollution from the proposed store. One problem the residents acknowledge is that they aren't sure how much, if any, the store might be visible from their homes.

But with access roads planned from Memory Lane and near the existing store, it's clear Clearview residents will have to deal with traffic going to and from the store, even if they can't see the store from their house, they said.

"It may be difficult to see the building itself, but I'm not really sure about that. I'm having a hard time imagining the elevation levels [of the proposed store]," Mazurek said. "But if anything, we'd see the lights, and some noise pollution, too."

"I will probably not have a view [of the store] from my house because I'm second in a row of homes. I know that they will have physical barriers — a lot of greenery — that will hide their structure," said Pollack, who along with her husband, has lived there for 16 years. "We've had numerous meetings on this and I still can't have a clear idea in my mind of the elevation. But the Wal-Mart will not only destroy our property value, but the traffic will hurt our way of life."

All of the plaintiffs interviewed said they never expected any type of commercial development to be put adjacent to their neighborhood when they purchased homes there, and said they were frustrated because they felt that there were other, less scenic spots for what some of them conceded would be an asset to the community.

Plaintiff Stanley Petersen has been one of the most vocal Wal-Mart critics, and said he and his wife will move if the supercenter is approved.

"If it goes through we're selling, and that's all there is to it. I've been fighting Wal-Mart — the original store — since day one, and that one didn't affect our property values at all," Petersen said. "But it's not so much the visibility of the new store, it's the traffic. We're looking at what, 4,000 to 5,000 cars a day? I don't know …"

Petersen said Clearview residents have suffered a half dozen zoning setbacks in the 20 years he's lived there, and estimates that the supercenter could cost him anywhere from $30-50,000 in property value, although that was just a guess, he noted.

None of the plaintiffs interviewed have hired an appraiser to provide an estimate on how much, if any, market value they might lose, but they say that it will certainly put a blight on the neighborhood that is more rural in character than neighborhoods inside the city. Many of the homes have views of the lake, and residents say they sought out that more rural setting years ago, thinking it would stay that way.

"The field next to us made it seem like it was out in the country. That was why we bought it in 1985. At the time we moved in here someone owned that land and had horses on it," Mazurek said.

He said most residents there don't have a problem with increased residential development, either. They just thought their neighborhood would be limited to residential growth, not faced with nearby commercial development.

"We assumed residential development would be the way it would go. We assumed from the county planning board that it would remain residential. It blew our mind that [the city council] would override that," Pollack said.

"I'm concerned about why the city would want to change the zoning after the city/county planning board confirmed that it should be just residential," Mazurek said, referring to a city/county planning board meeting earlier this year in which the board voted to recommend denying Wal-Mart's request for a commercial zoning designation.

The board could only make a recommendation, however, and the Polson City Council voted 4-2 to change the zoning on land above the Clearview Heights neighborhood at a June 29 meeting, thereby paving the way for the supercenter.

The suit, filed in district court, asks the court to deny the council's decision and overturn it, and to let the planning board's recommendation stand. Clearview residents say it's frustrating to be faced with the prospect of a supercenter near their neighborhood, even as many of them say they aren't against such a store in some other location.

"I'm not opposed to Wal-Mart necessarily. I try to be community-minded," Mazurek said. "None of us knows for sure how it will affect our property values. If something came in next door to us that was a classy development, it would only enhance our property values. But with the supercenter, who knows?"