Our Opinion

Thursday night, the Orange County Planning Commission fired question after question at Walmart representatives about environmental impacts, traffic analyses and-perhaps most importantly–whether or not the proposed Walmart would be built on part of the Wilderness Battlefield.
Walmart representatives answered them deftly, with the aplomb we should expect from America's premier retail giant.
One of the core questions at the heart of this discussion is whether or not the proposed supercenter would be built on Wilderness Battlefield lands.
According to Department of Historic Resources Director of Community Services Bob Carter, maps designed during a 1993 Congressional study of Civil War sites place a boundary on battlefield core areas. These are areas "where the forces truly hit, where people fought and where there was significant bloodshed." Then, there are ‘study areas,’ where encampments, hospitals and troop support would have been found. According to the 1993 study, the site on which Walmart aims to build is within the study area.
"This is where you would have found encampments and field hospitals," Carter explained. "The core area plus the study area equals the battlefield," he added.
So that means Sheetz, McDonald's, the adjacent strip mall, 7-Eleven, Lake of the Woods all fall within the study area.
Amid the debate Thursday, District 4 planning commissioner Donald Brooks asked, "People are asking, 'What happened when Sheetz went up? What happened when 7-Eleven went up? What happened when the strip mall went up? What happened when Lake of the Woods went up? Where were you all then?' "
Fair question, Mr. Brooks, thank you.
But the larger question is how do we reconcile commercially zoned land with historically significant land. Clearly, we can't just change the zoning because the land could be historically significant. All land in Virginia is historically significant. And don't even get us started on what this means in terms of property rights.
The land Walmart is attempting to build on is zoned for the very type of activity they're proposing. The only reason they're even appearing before our planning commission (and later our supervisors) is because of our recent big box ordinance that requires a special use permit for stores exceeding 60,000 square feet. Walmart's proposed supercenter will be 138,000 square feet.
Theoretically, the property's existing zoning allows Walmart (or anyone else) to construct several 59,999 square-foot stores without so much as saying "please." Right now, Walmart's playing nice and the county stands to get a good project with some sensitivity to the surroundings. If Walmart opts out, who knows what we get on that site?
Certainly, Walmart doesn't need us defending them. They've got the resources to do that quite capably, we're sure. What we all need is for folks to accept certain realities–that there are like uses adjacent to this commercially zoned property; that this property is zoned for the type of activity they're proposing; that it has been for 30 years and that some other commercial entity could construct multiple 59,000 square-foot stores on this very same tract without any public hearings whatsoever. And of that, there is no question.