Wal-Mart Plan May Be Placed on Simi Ballot

When Simi Valley voters adopted a tough hillside protection ordinance in 1986, they agreed to exempt a rolling hillside seen as the city’s last chance for a regional mall in exchange for one promise from council members: The mall would be the first thing built on the land.

Now, seven years later, the public may again be asked to pass judgment on the future of the 129-acre site between Erringer Road and 1st Street, north of the Simi Valley Freeway.

With the mall project indefinitely shelved because of poor market conditions, representatives of Wal-Mart on Friday filed an application seeking to proceed with construction of a 155,000-square-foot store next to the proposed mall.

Wal-Mart’s proposal has left city officials encouraged by the potential arrival of another tax-generating retailer, but reluctant to renege on their earlier promise to city residents.

“I don’t have any problem with Wal-Mart,” Councilman Bill Davis said Tuesday. “I just don’t think that you should make promises to the people to get something and then come back later and say, ‘Well, this is kind of like what we said.’ ”

Davis said many residents were reluctant to exempt the mall site from the hillside ordinance because of fears that the property would never get a mall, but would instead become just another collection of smaller, strip shopping centers.

At the time, he said the council assured residents that, “we’re going to build a mall up there or nothing else.”

The Wal-Mart site is in an area where auxiliary businesses could be built once the mall was in place, he said. “But the mall isn’t there,” he said, “and now you’re getting into the case of the chicken or the egg.”

Mayor Greg Stratton shared Davis’ concerns about breaking a promise.

“We are happy, obviously, that they are interested in coming to town. There are a lot of issues to be discussed, and one of them is whether we’re ready to grade that hillside without a mall there,” Stratton said.

“Personally, I feel that we do have a commitment in terms of what we promised--a mall--and a mall is going to have to wait until there are some department stores that aren’t in Chapter 11, so it’s a ways off.”

Both Stratton and Davis said it is ultimately the voters who are the most qualified to decide whether the potential value of having a Wal-Mart, with its promise of increased sales taxes, overrides the city’s desire to have the mall come first.

“I think maybe going to the ballot is a way of finding out really what the people want,” Stratton said. “As opposed to just relying on who comes down to public hearings, which tends to be a limited group.”

Stratton said the issue probably would not be ready for a referendum until June, 1994, because of the detailed discussions that would precede any public vote.

Deputy City Manager Jim Hansen said Friday that it would very likely be four months before the proposed Wal-Mart is considered by the Planning Commission and then referred to the City Council for final action.

Wal-Mart spokesman Trey Baker said Tuesday that he could not comment on the company’s plans in Simi Valley. “We have not made an announcement on anything in that particular market,” Baker said.

The company recently began construction in Oxnard of a 145,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store and accompanying 135,000-square-foot Sam’s Club, the company’s version of a membership warehouse outlet. The stores, being built near the Ventura Freeway at Rose Avenue, are expected to open in late August or early September.

But Wal-Mart’s possible arrival in Simi Valley has already drawn some critics. A group of Simi Valley residents mobilized a few months ago to oppose the company’s plans to locate in their community.

Calling themselves the Coalition to Save Jobs, the group held a news conference in October during which they said the Wal-Mart would draw shoppers away from existing Simi Valley stores and would eventually destroy the city’s chances for attracting a regional mall.