Towns Attempt to Restrict Store Size to Maintain Unique Character

In small towns across America, booksellers are in the vanguard of those battling to change or maintain current zoning laws in order to restrict store size and thereby ensure their community's continued uniqueness. In Nantucket, Massachusetts, a bookseller is looking to set a store-size cap before it becomes what she worries would be a polarizing issue for the historic island; in Homer, Alaska, a bookseller lost a battle to keep the store-size cap at 45,000 square feet; and this month, a Bennington, Vermont, developer asked the town to waive the town's new retail size cap to allow Wal-Mart to build a larger store, as reported by the Bennington Banner.

On the island first made famous by the book many consider to be the Great American Novel, Moby Dick, it is only fitting that a bookseller is trying to ensure that Nantucket maintains its historic character, uniqueness, and charm. Wendy Hudson of Nantucket Bookworks told BTW that she is hoping to amend Chapter 139 of the Code of the Town of Nantucket to, among other things, limit non-grocery "formula retail use" to 1,000-square-feet of "gross floor area."

In other words, to keep large chains out of historic downtown Nantucket.

"A Ralph Lauren store arrived in Nantucket last year -- it's this big building on Main Street," Hudson said. "One store is not the end of the world, but if it's not checked, it would be tough on independents -- already the real estate prices are high. And it's important to the character of Nantucket to be unique. We don't want to look like every other town. If there was ever a place that should be on the forefront of this, it's historic downtown Nantucket!"

At present, there are no plans in the works to bring any other chain stores into downtown. For that very reason, Hudson believes it's the perfect time to raise the issue. She told BTW that, if her proposal centered on a particular store, people would inevitably take sides in the issue, and it might become polarizing. Not a good thing on a small island where "everyone knows each other."

Last Wednesday, Hudson presented her proposal to limit retail size to the Town Selectmen. As is the way of Nantucket politics, proposals must be first given to the Selectmen before they are put on the town meeting agenda. And, at press time, it was learned that the Selectmen had moved to add the chain store article to the warrant for Nantucket's Annual Town Meeting this April.

Hudson credited ABA's educational programming at BookExpo America and information on BookWeb.org, among other sources, for giving her the knowledge to be able to be proactive regarding the issue of chains versus local stores. "I can't stress enough how important ABA's focus on these issues has been," she said via e-mail. "I attended the great panel at BookExpo last year about Independent Business Alliances, and have been gleaning information from BookWeb.org (and newrules.org) all year.... At the Selectman's meeting I touted ABA as the reason that it was me presenting the article [to amend the zoning code]."

In Homer, Alaska, the battle over store-size cap, which was waged for about two years, was prompted by supermarket chain Kroger's "interest in building a 94,000-square-foot ... superstore in Homer," according to The Hometown Advantage.

Faced with the prospect of a supermarket chain store opening in the tourist town of Homer -- and potentially opening the door for more chains -- bookseller Sue Post, co-owner of the Homer Bookstore, spearheaded a campaign to set a store-size cap. About two years ago, "a lot of people testified [to the former mayor] that we don't want big stores in Homer," she reported. "The mayor had a task force put together in January of 2003 ... I was the chairperson."

After the task force put together its recommendation and turned it over to the Planning Commission, the mayor placed a moratorium that limited store size to no more than 25,000-square-feet. The 25,000-square-foot cap lasted until last summer, when the council reached a compromise of 45,000-square-feet. Though the size cap was larger than Post wanted, she felt that Homer could live with it.

However, with the October elections came a new mayor, James Hornaday, and two new city council members, and subsequently, a new ordinance that looked to increase the 45,000-square-foot cap to 66,000-square-feet.

In an effort to drum up community support against the increase, Post had a letter to the editor published in Homer News in which she spoke out against the new ordinance. She also sent out an e-mail to her mailing list the week before the February 14 city council vote urging residents to attend the meeting and voice their opinion.

For Post, maintaining the town's character was as much about economics as it was aesthetics. "Homer is a real tourist community," Post said. "People come here and say, Your town is so unique, it's nice to come and find store owners who take pride in their stores!" She explained that, by allowing a large chain store to open in Homer, it would chip away at the town's unique character -- one of the key reasons people come to shop there.

Nonetheless, on Monday, February 14, the council voted for the 21,000-square-foot increase, though some 20 residents in attendance spoke out against it. "It was a split vote, and the mayor had the deciding vote," Post said.

Post believes the increase will have a kind of domino effect and "down the road, we'll see other chain stores" come to Homer. She said she is considering filing a lawsuit.

In Bennington, Vermont, in an effort to protect the town's "existing commercial areas" and to keep one retailer from dominating the market, the town's Select Board voted in late January to ban stores bigger than 75,000-square-feet and to require any "retail development projects larger than 30,000-square-feet to pass a community impact review," as reported by The Hometown Advantage.

Now the bylaw will be put up to a vote in the spring, according to the Bennington Banner.

In early February, about a week after the Select Board voted for the size-cap, a developer who is looking to tear down the current Wal-Mart and build a new, larger one asked the town to waive the new size cap, the Banner reported.

Though the town claimed the developer's application was invalid, it spurred a recent petition campaign by a local resident. The resident garnered twice the 500 signatures necessary to bring the size cap up to a vote. Now there will be a special election on whether to approve or reject the bylaw in either March or April, according to the Banner. --David Grogan