How To Nail Home Depot

By Al Norman, author, Slam-Dunking Wal-Mart: How You Can Stop Superstore Sprawl in Your Hometown

fN 1996, Home Depot opened a new store once every four Idays. By 1999, Home Depot claimed it would cut a ribbon every two days.

Now controlling more than lSVo of the $200 billion home improvement market in America, Depot chairman Bernie Marcus says, "There are markets in the U.S. that are so badly undersaturated that they will need to have lots of Home Depots." By October 1999, the store count was up to 866. The chain now boasts it will more than double its stores to 1,900 over the next four years.

It ain't gonna happen.

The main thing that stands in their way is not stock performance, housing starts or what their competitors do. It's organized citizen opposition. All it takes today is the orange shadow of a Home Depot to fall across a community, and the organizing begins. It's happening in North Miami, Fl. It's happening in Santa Cruz, Ca. Depot bashing is taking place from Roanoke, Va., to White Bear Lake, Mn., from Tucson, Az., to San Francisco, Ca. Citizens are saying: "Hometowns, Not Home Depot."

What used to be a 90-day permitting process can now take one or two years----even longer. Every time Home Depot delays a store opening for one year, that's $5 I million in lost revenues to the company. Marcus tries to shrug it off: "Now when we're opening 130 stores and you hear about (protests) in five or ten, you'd say, 'Well, my God, this is quite awful.' But it's not, it's about the same as it was before." It's not the same, it's getting worse.

Community opposition to Home Depot has escalated over the past six years because citizens now see the economic and social damage that big box retail can cause at the neighborhood level. "You want the nicest neighborhood in North Miami cluttered with this garbage?" asked one opponent.

Like-minded residents have formed do-it-yourself coalitions to defeat Depot. They need only four tools to succeed: (l) a broad-based citizen's group, (2) a land use attorney, (3) constant visibility in the media, and (4) money to pay for the first three.

Merchants and others in the industry often try to keep a low-profile in such campaigns, hoping the citizens will succeed, but doing little to make it happen. Here are three ways for local businesses to help ensure that hometowns win over Home Depot:

( | ) Be Preemptive. Communities such as Tucson, Santa Cruz and others are updating their zoning ordinances to make it harder for big box retailers to overwhelm smaller businesses. Some consultants tell hardware stores how to hide in a niche once Home Depot arrives. But the competition to survive begins before Depot arrives, and zoning amendments like size caps, special permits or regional economic impact reviews are much more effective in winning the battle early, rather than finding some obscure corner to hide in.

Begin now to renovate your city or town zoning codeeven if you already have a Home Depot in your community. St. Petersburg and Clermont, Fl., are examples of two communities that used their zoning codes to reject big boxes.

(2) Join a Coalition. To build a house, you have to start with the foundation. Identify now which people or groups in your community could take up the hometown banner. When Home Depot comes, they will set up an "astro-roots" group to counter any grassroots effort that crops up, so beat them to it.

Look around your regional trade area, and get your colleagues in the building supply industry together to plan for a battle. In Santa Rosa, Ca., the Redwood Empire Merchants Association hired an organizer and took on Depot directly. Home Depot took the path of least resistancc, and left.

(3) Invest in Your Future. Home Depot spent nearly half a million dollars to win a voter referendum in Toledo, Oh. The citizens opposing the project received little financial help from community businesses. Financial support for community coalitions can be provided in a low-profile way. Since Home Depot is investing heavily to put you out of business, consider your investment in community organizing as a downpayment on your future. Competition for market share does not begin once Home Depot opens, it starts before their site plan even reaches town planners.

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Home Depot is a hammer aimed at your neighborhood. For people in the lumber industry, this is your battle as much as anyone else's. Home Depot is hoping that you will leave the fight to others. But this is one job that's strictly di-y. A Home Depot TV spot I heard recently begins: "Communities aren't made of nails and boards, they're rnade of people." It is people in your trade area who can help nail Home Depot shut. If you're skeptical, remember Arthur Blank's words: "We have the abilitv to rnake a chanqe in the world."

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