Anti-Food Lion movement taking foot

I blogged about the potential new Food Lion here and here.

WCNC has a story on nearby residents attempting to organize to keep the Food Lion from commercializing the property they purchased. A couple snippets:

WAXHAW, N.C. -- Neighbors are banding together in Waxhaw to fight against Food Lion turning 33 acres into commercial property. Right now, the company can't build on the property because it’s zoned for residential use.

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The property was annexed into Waxhaw, which gives a 60 day window to place a zoning on it. Right now it's zoned for residential property, but down the road neighbors are expecting Food Lion to ask for commercial zoning so they can build a strip mall with a grocery store.

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NewsChannel 36 reached out to Food Lion and they said they have no current plans to start commercial building. Even if the commission votes to keep it residential on October 11, Food Lion can later petition for re-zoning if they want to start commercial building.

Read the whole thing.

The arguments against as quoted in the article seem to slightly contradict each other. On one hand, commercialization of the property will introduce all kinds of problems, but on the other hand, they're not necessarily against commercial development. Regardless, it seems like Food Lion is in no hurry to push the matter and since they already own the property, I guess they can bide their time.