Careful planning

The Bangor’s Planning Board is scheduled to meet today to continue discussion of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter near Stillwater Avenue. The issue is made more complicated because the extraordinary size of the development – a 224,000-square-foot store, nearly 1,000 parking spaces – places inescapably before the board a much larger question: Does the massive amount of development in the mall area ultimately strengthen or weaken the city?

The new Census shows Bangor to have a smaller population than it did a decade ago, down 5 percent. The region itself is down about 1 percent, meaning the success of the chain stores since ’90, the expansion of hundreds of thousands of feet of shopping aisles in the warehouse stores, the satellite malls off the main mall, etc., have come at the expense of other, older shops. The effect of this in seen in small towns across the region and in the downtown of the city itself, but in the absence of someone suggesting anything better, Bangor has pursued a policy of commercial development along Stillwater with vigor. Now a group of residents is asking the city to show what it has gotten for this strategy.

The group, Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development (BACORD), is concerned directly with the Wal-Mart development and the paving of the Penjajawoc Marsh area. But its articulate and unmistakable message is broader; it is about the priorities and values of the community. Is there, the group asks, a better alternative to more mountainous cinder-block stores and more prairies of parking lots?

BACORD’s question makes some people uncomfortable, perhaps based on a fair reading of Bangor. Or they might have a direct or indirect financial interest in seeing the Wal-Mart site or adjacent sites developed, or they might not like anyone doubting this kind of development, which represents, in effect, a lifestyle. But BACORD has raised the question respectfully and has come with plenty of information that shows its concern is substantial. The planning board, in turn, should consider whether, for instance, Bangor is a more affordable place because of the commercial mall-area development. Does Bangor have stronger civic ties because of it? Is it healthier environmentally? Is it making the best use of its resources? Is there evidence that Bangor is a more desirable place to live now than, say, a decade ago?

It is these questions that turn the planning board to the larger issues of Bangor’s future. If Wal-Mart were a more modest store, the issues might not arise, but the scale of the proposed development on previously undeveloped land requires answers to these questions, answers that cannot be found in a day or a week.

The planning board has the opportunity today to acknowledge how difficult the questions are by taking the time to answer them thoroughly. Among the options for the board is to take a six-month moratorium on this development, six months in which the questions can be answered and alternatives considered. After years and years of headlong development with uncertain results, it is a small, sensible request. The board should grant it.