Carol Walbesser fixes her gaze upon the vast expanse of damp, weathered foliage that stretches for acres from the back porch of her daycare center. The laughter of children inside, mixed with the sing-song voices of their caretakers, manages to penetrate the noise of traffic which emanates from Millersport Highway on the other side of the structure, noise which is growing stronger as the evening rush hour begins. She sighs, looks over the daycare center she built with her husband and has owned for nearly 12 years, and says “It’s going to be a shame what they’re going to do to us.”

An issue that has already embroiled the nation has struck far too close for Carol Walbesser, the owner of Amherst Baby & ChildCare. On December 21 of last year, Wal-Mart Stores applied for a site plan approval from the Town of Amherst Planning Board to build a 217,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter at 4300 Millersport Highway. Walbesser’s daycare center is located at 4350 Millersport, literally next door.

In addition to the store, which will sport a drive-through pharmacy and tire and lube center, Wal-Mart plans to use the 67.4-acre parcel of land to construct a ten-pump fueling station and will portion two smaller parcels near Millersport for later use, probably for fast-food chain restaurants. However, not all residents of the Town of Amherst think that low prices will cover the concerns they have over the arrival of a Wal-Mart Supercenter or the proposed location.

A “big box retailer” like Wal-Mart can have a large effect on the surrounding community. A Supercenter would bring jobs to the area, create tax revenue, and give consumers another choice when they leave the house. However, concerns also abound over an increase in traffic, potential flooding, and the general eyesore the store and its 1,022-space parking lot will create for the immediate rural area. Despite multiple attempts, Wal-Mart representatives did not respond to Generation’s calls to address these issues.

Amherst residents, though, have been eager to voice their opinions. The project is currently being reviewed by the Town of Amherst Planning Board, which will be reviewing the finalized environmental impact statement from Wal-Mart during their April 20 meeting. If the project moves ahead, a decision on the entire site plan could be made as early as this fall. But the opposition from area residents has been overwhelming so far.

At a March 23 meeting at the Amherst Town Hall, the environmental impact of the new store was discussed in a public scoping session. The chairperson of the Town of Amherst Planning Board, Catherine Weiss, made it abundantly clear before the meeting began that only the environmental impact of the project would be discussed. “This is not your opportunity to say how much you like or hate the plan,” she warned. Residents would have to hold any opinion they had of Wal-Mart itself off the record.

Weiss’ warning was largely heeded by the procession of citizens, many with their own maps, photos, and even PowerPoint slides, who stepped up to the podium that night. While the sentiments of the attendees were overwhelmingly against the project, they raised legitimate concerns that generally revolved around the proposed location of the Wal-Mart.

The parcel where Wal-Mart plans to build rests on a 100-year flood plain, meaning this area of Amherst has a one percent chance of having a major flood any given year. Roger Schroeder, the spokesman for the Town of Amherst Conservation Advisory Council at the meeting, gave a detailed presentation on the implications of a large structure in the proposed parcel. Schroeder asserted that the store could compromise a nearby drainage ditch’s capacity to remove excess water. In short, the large development would stand where water typically overflows during flood conditions, potentially displacing that water farther towards residential areas.

Walbesser knows that flooding in the northern Amherst area is hardly a minor concern. Her daycare center rests on a hill of raised land, a hill that had to be built up ten feet at a cost of $20,000 to keep the structure safe from floodwaters. It was a good thing she did, too, as past floodwaters had risen up above the level of the daycare center’s basement windows. Despite the fact that the store’s presence could disrupt the distribution of run off water, Walbesser is more concerned with other issues surrounding the project.

Walbesser’s daycare center is responsible for the safety of over 80 children aging from six weeks to school age. The land around the daycare center features a chain-link-fenced play area for the children, which was littered with colorful miniature cars and various other toys on an overcast Friday afternoon. According to the proposed site plan, one of the outlying parcels that Wal-Mart will develop borders the play area that sits to one side of the center. If that parcel is developed into a fast food restaurant or other business, there will be cars and commerce on the other side of the fence instead of foliage. That fact worries Walbesser.

“Our biggest concern is safety,” she said.

Not only will there be a small store a stone’s throw from the daycare’s play area, but an access road on the other side of the center’s property will also be built to handle the traffic flowing into and out of the Supercenter. The daycare center was recently bordered only by Millersport Highway and New Road (a two-lane road a good distance from the center). With the completion of the Supercenter, the daycare provider would literally be surrounded on all sides with traffic-carrying pavement.

Diana Cicciarelli, the director at Amherst Baby & ChildCare Center, is also concerned about increased traffic on Millersport Highway. She related a recent accident on Millersport in which a car tried to squeeze a left turn onto New Road through the traffic. The result was a totaled vehicle.

“If there had been a passenger in the car,” Cicciarelli said, “he would have been killed.” Such incidents are not unusual on a fast-moving, five-lane thoroughfare. The question is: will a Wal-Mart and the traffic it brings create even more?

The current plan to deal with Millersport traffic is to install a traffic light at the Millersport entrance to Wal-Mart, which lies between New and Young Roads. These roads are only a quarter of a mile apart, meaning that there will be three traffic lights in that distance on a 55-mile-per-hour road that is largely void of such hang-ups. Walbesser, who says that the traffic on Millersport is already heavy enough, doesn’t think the plan is sound. “You can see how three signals aren’t going to work,” she commented.

While Walbesser is opposed to the proposed store, she made it clear that she has no fight to pick with Wal-Mart. In fact, she had visited one earlier that day.

“I shop at Wal-Mart, they have a good thing going,” she said. “I don’t think anyone wants them in their backyard.” Her sentiments mirror those of many consumers who frequent Wal-Mart.

Dee Kabanagh shops three to four times a month at the Wal-Mart on Niagara Falls Boulevard. She says she frequents the store because of its low prices. “I can find things I can’t find anywhere else,” she added. Kabanagh, like many Wal-Mart shoppers, finds a store with a huge variety of items appealing. She commented that Wal-Mart carries parts for her bicycle that would otherwise necessitate a more costly and separate trip to a bike store.

While Kabanagh may enjoy what Wal-Mart offers, she doesn’t see the need to build another store in Amherst.

“Not that close,” she said. “They should expand [the Niagara Falls Boulevard store] instead.” It should be noted that Kabanagh hails from nearby Tonawanda, a town lacking Wal-Marts. She says if the Millersport Highway store opens, she won’t mind.

However, she said, “If I lived there, it would make a difference.” Wal-Mart stores are like nuclear reactors—everyone wants the product, but nobody wants an atom splitter across the street.

The density of area Wal-Marts is a point opponents of the project bring up often. Walmart.com’s “store finder” located no fewer than six Wal-Mart stores within 15 miles of Amherst, New York (the Niagara Falls Boulevard store is already in Amherst). But only one of those stores is a Wal-Mart “Supercenter,” a huge warehouse-like structure that is often touted as an option for “one-stop shopping.” Supercenters offer all that a Wal-Mart ever could, combined with a full supermarket and mixed with smaller stores offering everything from fresh pretzels to new lenses in an hour. And they’re open 24 hours a day.

And it is low prices, combined with a huge number of items, which keeps customers flowing through Wal-Mart’s doors. It has been argued, however, that in small towns across America customers walking into a “one-stop shop” like Wal-Mart could be walking out of smaller stores. Ralph Halpern, an occasional Wal-Mart shopper, views the issue as a case of competitive commerce.

“The guy who can do it cheaper wins,” he said. “The consumer benefits—the prices are cheaper.” Halpern also noted that a center of commercial activity like Wal-Mart would pull in plenty of tax revenue for Amherst, as well as create jobs in economically depressed Western New York.

Amherst residents who wish to keep Wal-Mart away from 4300 Millersport Highway may face a difficult task.

“The Wal-Mart proposal is consistent with the zoning. Nothing has come up to indicate they can’t build there,” said Gary Black, the assistant planning director for the Town of Amherst Planning Board. “But there are issues.” Black said the Planning Board was fully aware of the possible problems a Supercenter could cause, including the fact there is currently no sanitary sewer service in that area.

If Wal-Mart can ensure the project will be up to standards, there is no legal reason the project won’t move ahead. The Planning Board can only analyze the site plan from Wal-Mart and advise the town board on whether it fits the zone or not.

“They don’t have a policy decision,” Black said, referring to the Planning Board. “They shouldn’t be prejudicing their decision until all the information is in front of them.”

But there is some question over the zoning of the parcel. The area has been zoned since 1976 to accommodate a store like Wal-Mart, but the 2004 Town of Amherst Bicentennial Comprehensive Plan suggested the parcel be rezoned as “mixed use” for residential and small store or shopping center development. According to Black, the intention is for a smoother transition between rural and urban settings. However, the actual zoning hasn’t caught up to the Comprehensive Plan.

The Town of Amherst will be reviewing the zoning ordinance text on the first of May at a public meeting, and Black says, “it is theoretically possible the town could rezone before construction,” when Wal-Mart would have vested interest in the site. It’s not quite that easy, though; he also warns that a sudden rezoning of that parcel could result in legal issues and land the town in an appeals court.

“The town doesn’t have the luxury of deciding who has the parcel,” Black said.

The Amherst Town Board will hold the majority of the power in deciding the fate of 4300 Millersport, but they cannot simply refuse the store on principle alone—Wal-Mart has a legal right to purchase and develop the land. Keeping Wal-Mart out of town would require drastic changes.

Amherst is not the only community in Western New York to deal with the expansion of Wal-Mart. Nearby East Aurora has kept Wal-Mart out of their town despite two attempts to construct a store, according to The Buffalo News. The village has made a conscious effort to maintain its small-town charm, going so far as to ban new drive-through restaurants on Main Street. Their strategy to keep Wal-Mart out, however, was to limit the size of new retail structures to 55,000 square feet.

Gary Black acknowledges that a cap like this is an option for Amherst; he says that a new resolution is being considered to restrict buildings over 50,000 square feet to certain parts of town. The problem with such a proposal is that there are plenty of buildings that Amherst would want (supermarkets, for example) that would exceed the size limit. The bottom line is residents can’t simply pick and choose which stores they’d like to see and where; it is impossible to target one development while ignoring similar instances.

That does not mean that construction is inevitable. “It is not a done deal either way,” said Town Supervisor Satish Mohan. “These things are dynamic.” Gary Black agrees with Mohan; it is difficult to say where the development of 4300 Millersport Highway will be a year from now. Both officials indicated that any input from the public would be taken into consideration, whether it be by email, phone, or in a public meeting (visit Amherst.ny.us for contact information and meeting schedules).

Whatever the fate of the parcel of land bordering Carol Walbesser’s daycare will be, it is clear that residents of the town have major concerns over the arrival of a Wal-Mart. For those who strongly oppose the project, the road ahead will be fraught with difficulties; the few towns that have refused Wal-Mart do so only after a long battle waged by the citizens. But when the moment comes for officials to make a decision, Mohan is certain it will be the right one, arrived at through a hard look at the facts.

“We will do what’s best for the town,” he said.