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Letter to the editor that also appeared in the May 3rd issue of the Sakonnet Times:
Target: Don’t repeat Middletown mess
To the editor:
I was beyond dismayed to learn about Target’s massive store proposal for Portsmouth. The plan is to build a 500-foot long store of more than 136,000 square feet on 16 acres at Union Street and West Main Road.
Not only is any big box bad for the Island — or any community (see the anti-sprawl manifesto on Middletown First’s website: http://www.middletownfirst.org), but this specific location will have numerous adverse environmental, traffic, safety, economic and aesthetic impacts.
Union Street is one of the most historic and beautiful streets on the island. The site borders the Lawton Valley Reservoir, a drinking water source. Losing 16 acres of wooded land will displace even more “troublesome” coyotes.
Quotes by Portsmouth Town Administrator Robert Driscoll, “I’m not thrilled by it … but it’s probably something that’s inevitable,” and Town Planner Robert Gilstein, “It’s big, but I guess we kind of knew something was going to come someday and this is as good a spot as any,” were discouraging.
We expect our town officials to protect us from unwise development, not be resigned to it. Proactive measures are needed to protect our quality of life for generations to come. A building size cap should be implemented immediately into Portsmouth’s Zoning Code. A cap size of 30,000 sq. ft (approx. size of Clements’) is a good start. Small scale, village-style commercial development should be encouraged.
The usual pie-in-the-sky promises are being made by the developer and his attorney, Bob Silva, yet no attempts have been made to comply with Portsmouth’s Design Review guidelines to date. Previous buildings under the well written, but still only advisory Design Review, include the tradesman complex eyesore on West Main near Melville. Design Review is not regulatory and Target HQ will try to get away with as much as possible
Portsmouth needs only to glance at Middletown’s failed commercial district to learn what not to do. A quick study of the written conditions in the Middletown Square strip mall decision will reveal hollow promises, i.e.: a “state of the art” detention/retention system that is not maintained, a “landscaping” plan that features a few measly one-foot caliper trees interspersed between median dividers filled with gravel and trash, a building and parking lot that was supposed to be “hidden” from the road by the stone wall out front (it is not), a tax boon to residents, etc., etc. In fact, taxes have increased since its completion. As has street flooding. Not to mention, smaller, locally owned stores have suffered. National retail chains’ profits get sent back to corporate headquarters in another city, far away.
The Target site will spread like a cancer up and down Portsmouth’s west side which soon will have the same traffic and safety nightmares as our own West Main Road. We cannot let short-sighted greed and the obsession for instant access to crap consumables destroy this beautiful town. Please join the newly formed, smart growth grassroots organization “Preserve Portsmouth.” Sadly, the last thing Aquidneck Island needs is another Middletown.
Gail Greenwood
Middletown
