I have been asked by the Southwest Springfield Neighbors Association (SWSNA), of which I am proudly a member, to respond to last Sunday's editorial, headlined "End fight vs. Wal-Mart." The editorial suggested that the proposed West Wabash Avenue Wal-Mart is a done deal, or deserves to be; that the 1,200-plus neighbors who petitioned the city council to reject the development are a bunch of NIMBY crybabies; and that if the city doesn't bow to the almighty Wal-Mart, it will lose a lawsuit.

Our Web site, www.swsna.org, sets forth Wal-Mart's proposal and our position in detail. We can only briefly summarize our position here: Wal-Mart has no right to this development, and there are compelling reasons for the city to deny Wal-Mart's proposal.

In May, Wal-Mart abandoned its request for rezoning in response to SWSNA's objections, so zoning is no longer an issue. Instead, the battle is now about Wal-Mart's requests for special treatment under the city subdivision ordinance - in legal parlance, "variances." Wal-Mart, which spends more than $1 billion per month purchasing real estate, apparently refuses to pay for a site in Springfield meeting the requirements of the subdivision ordinance - criteria designed to preserve values in nearby neighborhoods such as Cobblestone Subdivision and the other subdivisions to the north.

The subdivision ordinance requires Wal-Mart to prove that existing or planned infrastructure is adequate; that drainage is adequate; that off-site impacts are minimized; that all lots have access to public streets. Wal-Mart either cannot meet these requirements, or has asked for variances waiving them. In short, it seeks to externalize the true costs of development upon adjacent neighborhoods.

Wal-Mart's variance requests relate directly to the SJ-R's concerns about potential litigation with Wal-Mart. Springfield lost the Maulding case precisely because it reneged on variances granted under a previous administration. We seek to prevent Wal-Mart from obtaining variances in the first place. Under the subdivision ordinance, variances may be granted only upon a developer's showing of "extraordinary circumstances" that "will result in a hardship" and "are not common to most other tracts."

Self-evidently, these factors are not present here. This time around, the city will be holding all the aces should it deny the variances.

To better get the flavor of what Wal-Mart is proposing, let's consider just the traffic impact of this supercenter on one street, Meadowbrook Road.

The Illinois Department of Transportation predicts more than 10,000 new automobile trips per day generated by a supercenter, and an additional 5,000 trips generated by associated development - an average of 416 to 625 trips per hour, 24/7/365. Wal-Mart's latest traffic study focuses exclusively on peak traffic volumes generated by the supercenter and projects a peak of 955 new trips per hour. (Curiously, Wal-Mart's traffic projections are based on a 1997 Florida study and omit weekend traffic - but that's another story.)

Wal-Mart predicts that 11 percent of this new traffic will use Meadowbrook Road. This means that 1,100 to 1,650 new cars per day on average, and 105 cars per hour at peak, will use Meadowbrook Road, which is presently a quiet street. How many eager Wal-Mart shoppers will blast through the intersection where little kids cross Meadowbrook Road in droves on their way to Vachel Lindsay School? What will Meadowbrook Road be like a week before Christmas? You won't find answers to such questions in Wal-Mart's study.

Our bottom line is this: We do not object to commercial development on West Wabash. We do object to locating a supercenter less than 250 feet from a residential zone and less than 350 feet from existing homes with all the resulting traffic, noise, storm water runoff, crime, light pollution and trash. Consider the difference between a barking dog and a raging Godzilla inhabiting your neighbor's back yard; there you have it in a nutshell.

The ultimate solution to the Wal-Mart problem is for the city to adopt a "big box" ordinance, which recognizes the devastating off-site impacts of huge stores, a task for which old-fashioned subdivision ordinances are often inadequate. Scores of cities have adopted such ordinances. Springfield needs to also. Until then, SWSNA will continue to fight. We have no other choice.

John Myers is a Springfield attorney whose practice includes municipal and real estate law. He represents SWSNA on a pro bono basis.