Chili Strip Mall Is A Bad Idea
By Carol C. Confer  

(Gates-Chili Post 3/15/06)

A strip mall on Paul Road? Some people think it's super. Come on, folks. Get real.

1. The traffic already is horrible. Try making a left-hand turn from Paul Road into the entrance to Wegmans, ESL, M&T plus a medical center and you'll have a hair-raising experience.
 

2. The side streets, Grennell Drive and Westway, have become "cut - throughs" to Paul Road with speeding traffic making walking on these roads a "thrill - a -minute," and it will become worse with a new mall destination at the end of once quiet residential streets. However, drivers may lose interest in these cut-throughs once they find out how bad it is to pull out onto Paul Road. You could eat your lunch waiting.

3. And then there is the water problem. Every spring we have **Lake Archer" arrive as water flows through a culvert from Ranchmar under Chili Avenue and emerges as a very rapid stream that flows under Paul Road to the wetlands and eventually empties into Black Creek. However, we will soon have a 500-car parking lot for the church and who knows how many other black-topped lots for the big-box mall. Where will all this water go? Probably my basement.

4. And what about poor K-Mart? Surely the competition down the road isn't going to help them. If we're lucky, we can soon have a big empty box sitting in the middle of Chili Center just like the old empty Gold Circle box sitting in Westmar in Gates. I can hardly wait.

5. It will lower our taxes - hog-wash! Last year my assessment was raised about $17,000 so I am paying more in taxes. A strip mall isn't going to lower my taxes - only my resale value.

If we must have these big boxes, there must be a better place for them or has this spot been chosen because of an economic advantage for the present owners and not for the good of the town.

Carol C. Confer is a Westway  resident in Chili.