Friday, August 1, 2014

Whoa, Bellevue


    Bellevue should put the brakes on its headlong rush toward annexation of 227 acres of property along state Highway 75 northeast of the city.
    The proposed zoning endorsed by the Planning and Zoning Commission in its first hearing on the matter could open the door to big-box retail operations that would sap the life from Main Streets, not only in Bellevue, but in Hailey, Ketchum and Sun Valley.
    Hometown businesses lose when big-box discounters come in. The nation’s Main Streets are populated by the skeletons of once prosperous businesses bashed by the big boxes. Ugly urban sprawl would mar the face of the entrance to the Wood River Valley, whose looks are its livelihood.
    The prospect of cheap goods made in offshore sweatshops and low-wage jobs should not drive this decision.
    Until now, cities in the Sun Valley area have fought off sprawl, preferring to create compact, pedestrian-friendly cities dominated by people, not asphalt and automobiles. This has made our cities lovely to live in and visit.
    While a vast expanse of commercial property may appear to be a pot of gold, it could very well be a poison pill for a fragile local economy that’s only slowly recovering from the major blows of two big wildfires, skimpy snowpacks and the national economic crash of 2008.
    Bellevue shouldn’t calculate the annexation’s economic impacts on the back of an envelope. Nor should it use the annexation to stick a political finger in its northern neighbors’ eyes. The decision on annexation and zoning is too enormously important. Instead, Bellevue should slow down and get a professional assessment of the impacts of various development scenarios.
    A hasty and ill-considered rush to what may look like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow could leave Bellevue and the rest of the valley holding only a pot of ashes.




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