COMMENTARY
Bruce Andriatch: Trying to find the e-mailers’ inner NIMBY
When Clarence residents complain about the possibility of a new Wegmans being built on Transit Road near their neighborhood, they say people don’t know what it would be like to live in the shadow of a huge supermarket.
But I do. I lived next to a Tops for four years. Except for the constant temptation of having a bakery footsteps from my front door, there was no downside.
I have tried telling this to some of the Wegmans opponents, but they remain steadfast.
They have sent e-mails to me or the newspaper, rebutting statements made in articles and explaining their position. I saved all of them as I tried to understand their point of view.
Looking back at them, I realized they weren’t really saying what they meant:
“Regardless of how it sounds, the residents of Rolling Meadows and Highland Farms are not against Wegmans. We are all loyal shoppers of their current store. We applaud everything that Wegmans does for its customers, employees and the general community. We are against the rezoning of the seven acres of property.”
Translation: Look, everyone knows Wegmans is awesome, and we all shop there, so it would be foolish of us to say anything bad about the company or its stores. We hope that arguing about something as arcane as zoning will obscure our true purpose: We want people to stop building stuff out here.
“You also omitted the fact that our Wegmans would like to attach a liquor store to the facility in a time where tobacco and alcohol are more than curiosity to preteen and teenagers attending the middle school.”
Translation: Our children are unbelievably overprotected and isolated from anything that could be construed as dangerous. We fear letting them even see booze or cigarettes.
“Let’s build a 140,000 sq. ft. [store] across from a Middle and High School and watch teenagers jaywalk across Transit Road. We all know that the Wegmans food court will be THE hangout for the kids, and we all know that teenagers will always use the light to cross the street.”
Translation: If we can’t trust our kids enough to let them see a liquor store, how can we trust them to cross a busy street?
“We are opposed to this particular rezoning from current residential to major arterial commercial use and subsequent major commercial development because this will have a very negative impact on our home property values and a very adverse impact on overall quality of lives.”
Translation: We don’t want anything to stop our property values from going up, until we get a new assessment, when we will argue that our homes are not really that valuable.
“Environmental issues and visual impacts (storm runoff, debris, emissions from trucks and cars, rodents, loss of sunlight due to high berms and fencing, impacts to existing wildlife, and noise levels).”
Translation: Wegmans will pollute the environment and, if left unchecked, block out the sun.
“I have seen Roll Road go from a small country road to a very congested highway. Putting a store of this size [here] would only make it much worse. This concerns me.”
Translation: I miss the ’50s.
“A store the size of three football fields placed in the backyards of our peaceful neighborhood would be absolutely devastating.”
Translation: Our so-called peaceful neighborhood is directly behind Transit, OK? We have to deal with that mess 365 days a year, OK? Wegmans might bring more traffic, and, as God is our witness, if even one more car uses that road, we are positively going to LOSE IT!
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