Home Depot takes flak over proposed Cameron Park store on Home Services

Jan

Home Depot takes flak over proposed Cameron Park store

posted by admin in Home Depot

The Home Depot Inc. wants to build a store in Cameron Park, but some nearby residents are rallying opposition.

The home-improvement retail chain is targeting 33 acres off Highway 50 near Cambridge Road and Country Club Drive. It has submitted a pre-application for a 103,000-square-foot store plus a 35,000-square-foot garden center. Another 123,000 square feet is planned for other retailers, said Larry Appel, El Dorado County’s deputy planning director.

The company is saying little about the proposal. “Home Depot is interested in serving the Cameron Park/El Dorado Hills area and has not committed to any new location at this time,” said company spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher.

Home Depot (NYSE: HD), the world’s largest home-improvement retailer with 2,170 stores, already has a store six miles west in Folsom and another 11 miles east in Placerville.

Some residents might like the convenience of shopping closer to home for home-improvement supplies not available at the two hardware stores in Cameron Park. With all the commuters in the community, many others drive by an existing Home Depot on the way to and from work.

Critics say the Home Depot would be built too close to homes. Other fears are that the Cambridge Road interchange couldn’t handle all the traffic, the back of the store could be an eyesore, and the store could create noise and light pollution. In addition, some residents are concerned about the waterfowl that have made their home at the proposed site, part of which long ago was used as a sewage treatment plant.

About 20 acres of the 33-acre site are zoned for professional office commercial, which would not allow a Home Depot. But the other 13 acres are zoned for planned commercial, a designation that would allow a large store, a county planning staff member said.

Steve Anderly, whose dining room and children’s bedrooms would look out at the store, has collected 350 signatures in the past week opposing it, both through paper petitions and online at ipetitions.com. His goal is to present 1,000 signatures to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. Separately, the board has received several letters of opposition.

In the decade he’s lived in the house in the Archwood neighborhood, Anderly has always known the site could be developed but thought it would be as offices. He objects to an almost-around-the-clock operation and questions whether the fire department is equipped to handle a large store stocking paint and chemicals.

“I’m extremely not happy with it,” said Barry Pino, owner of the 29-year-old Cameron Park Ace Hardware store around the corner from the proposed Home Depot.

Cameron Park, with about 15,350 residents, has just enough customers to support the two existing hardware stores and nurseries, Pino said.

One Sacramento-area retail real estate broker, however, disagrees.

Steve Edwards, a Potter-Taylor %26 Co. broker who represents rival home-improvement chain Lowe’s Cos. Inc. in the region, said the Cameron Park corridor is underserved for home-improvement merchandise and retail goods in general. Does Cameron Park have the population to support a Home Depot? “You bet,” he said.

Lowe’s, he added, has no projects in the works for El Dorado County.