AGENDA '08
Wal-Mart, comprehensive plan top Bath town plans for new year
By ROB PRICE THE COURIER-ADVOCATE

PHOTO BY ROB PRICE The adult products store on Worth Road could find itself in non-compliance with Bath land use regulations recommended in a draft comprehensive plan completed at the end of 2007.

BATH - When Bath town Supervisor Fred Muller looks ahead into 2008, he sees two big projects facing the town.

The hot-button issue, Muller said in an interview last week, is a proposed Wal-Mart super center on state Route 54. Supporters of the project argue it will improve shopping opportunities in central Steuben County; opponents counter it will put established stores out of business and cause of host of environmental problems.

"Wal-Mart's the hottest thing on the table," Muller said.

The town government's primary role in the project is to oversee a state-mandated environmental impact study.

That job is the responsibility of the town planning board, which has forwarded a scoping document to the Wal-Mart corporation detailing areas of environmental concern the corporation must address in its design documents.

Muller said he expects the initial environmental issues to be resolved sometime in 2008, although he added he could not predict when, or if, construction of the 150,000 square foot store would begin.

"Whether any actual construction begins (in 2008) I can't guess," he said.

The other significant issue facing the town, Muller said, is the adoption of a comprehensive plan for future development.

An ad hoc committee worked through 2007 to prepare a draft plan for the municipality that was submitted to the town board at the end of last year. Muller has asked town board members Robin Lattimer and Albert Burns to work with planning board Chairman James Emo and Hal Bailey, chairman of the ad hoc committee, to prepare the draft for formal review and action by the town board.

Once the plan is accepted, Muller said, the board will turn its attention to the issue that drove the board to begin development of a comprehensive plan in the first place: legislation regulating the location of adult products stores.

The board's action followed the controversial opening of a adult products store on Worth Road in 2005. Critics of the store asked town officials to explore ways of forcing its closing; officials responded there are no zoning or land use regulations in the town that could be used in legal action against the business.

That could change in 2008, although Muller declined to say whether the town would use land use regulations, based on the comprehensive plan, to sue the Worth Road store.

"That's up to the town board,"he said.