The 1450 players

For

• Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth: Grass-roots advocacy group made up of independent business owners, neighborhood advocates and social justice activists. bburg.org.
• Citizens First: Registered Virginia political action committee and government watchdog group to which a majority of town council members have ties. citizensfirstforblacksburg.org
• Downtown Merchants of Blacksburg: Independent business association. downtownblacksburg.com

Against

• Blacksburg Partnership: Independent nonprofit funded by Blacksburg Town Council, Virginia Tech and local developers. Mission is to recruit retailers and encourage economic growth. blacksburgpartnership.org
• Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce: montgomerycc.org
• Citizens Against Ordinance 1450: Ad-hoc group led by former Blacksburg Mayor Roger Hedgepeth. stop1450.org
• Fairmount Properties: Retail development firm based in Cleveland, Ohio, recruited by local landowners to develop 40 acres of vacant and blighted land along South Main Street from King Street to Country Club Drive. fairmountproperties.com
• Llamas LLC and Diversified Investors XIII LLC: Limited liability partnerships made up of Montgomery County developers Jeanne Stosser and Georgia Anne Snyder-Falkinham and four other unnamed partners who own the land on which Fairmount plans to build. blacksburgshopping.com

In the middle

• Blacksburg Town Council: Seven members will decide on an ordinance that could hinder the South Main Street revitalization project and future retail expansion across town.

BLACKSBURG -- Another skirmish between two armies in the ongoing war for the town's future will join at tonight's town council meeting.

The controversy centers on a 40-acre commercial revitalization project planned along South Main Street, and a proposed land-use ordinance that could curb it. It pits slow-growth and environmental activists against those who support more liberal economic growth and development, and presents moderate council members with tough choices.

The troops in this war have been marshaling since the late 1990s, when environmentalists tried to persuade the council to establish a nature park on 169 acres of town land in the Toms Creek Basin. The debate grew contentious, and many came out bruised. There was no clear winner and today the identity of Heritage Park hangs in limbo. But the controversy set the stage for a much bigger battle.

In 2004 many of those same activists, aided by open government and "smart growth" advocates, succeeded in killing a council plan to build a conventional sewer system in the basin. That victory and the council members brought to power by it have ushered in a new era in town politics. This is today's Blacksburg. And its hallmark is a decidedly more conservative approach to development.

But in recent days, developers, business people and others who support more liberal growth are rising up. Tonight, the third battle begins. The armies on either side of Ordinance 1450 are gathering with their leaders at the helm.

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Margaret and Daniel Breslau never thought they'd have to fight to keep a big-box store out of small-town Blacksburg, where Daniel teaches at Virginia Tech and Margaret runs a small clothing and gift shop that is in many ways the antithesis of large chain stores such as Wal-Mart.

But when in March developer Fairmount Properties of Ohio submitted a site plan to the Blacksburg Planning and Engineering Department showing a 186,000-square-foot store widely rumored to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter, the couple were prepared, Daniel Breslau said.

Two summers ago, while on a family trip through the Southeast, they took photos of abandoned Wal-Marts left when the company pulls out of communities it no longer deems profitable. Some of those photos were used in "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of the Low Price," a 2005 documentary critical of the global superstore. The low-cost, mass-produced goods sold by Wal-Mart and other big chain stores "force practices on developing countries that are harmful to workers and the environment," Daniel Breslau said.

But the biggest threat a big-box store poses to Blacksburg is that it will be "out of scale" with the community, Breslau argues. Such a store will harm the town's independent hardware, clothing and other independent stores and cause more traffic and noise problems in surrounding residential areas, he said. Of special concern to the opponents is the safety of students at Margaret Beeks Elementary School, which borders the store site.

The Breslaus joined with Virginia Tech students and faculty, Blacksburg neighborhood advocates and local business owners such as Ranae Gillie of Gillie's restaurant, to found the grass-roots lobby Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth, or BURG. Daniel Breslau is chairman of the group's steering committee. Over the past few weeks, BURG members have canvassed neighborhoods with petitions opposing large chain stores and lined up by the dozens to try to persuade town officials to act. Their rallying point has been Ordinance 1450.

Proposed by Councilman Don Langrehr shortly after Fairmount submitted its site plans, the ordinance would require a council-approved special-use permit for any retail building larger than 80,000 square feet.

The council is scheduled to vote on the ordinance at its 7:30 meeting tonight in the town Municipal Building.

If it passes -- and BURG members say they are confident they have enough council votes -- it will likely be applied to Fairmount's big-box, requiring the landowners and the firm to submit the project to further public scrutiny.

The company has filed a pre-emptive suit against the council in Montgomery County Circuit Court. It asks that the court protect the South Main project from further government regulation. A hearing is set for June 7.

***

Few in town, even among activists, can match Jeanne Stosser's track record for lobbying in town hall. In recent years the Southwest Virginia native has fought hard to bring creative residential, and now commercial developments, to Blacksburg. The former housewife, who earned her real estate license while raising a family, is one of the most prolific developers in the New River Valley. But she has suffered major disappointments.

In 2005 the council voted down her plan to build Northside Park, a village-style residential development near U.S. 460. She says the council now seems bent on destroying her biggest project, the South Main Street redevelopment tentatively named "First & Main," where a big-box store such as a Wal-Mart would go.

"It's difficult to watch a community at war, especially when it's unnecessary," Stosser said. "It's taken a whole lot out of me."

Stosser is one of six partners who own the 40 acres Fairmount plans to develop. Fairmount principal Adam Fishman has said his company has a contract to buy the land when construction begins. Langrehr's Ordinance 1450 is a foul play in the game of land-use regulation, according to Stosser. The council approved a broad rezoning last year that paved the way for the First & Main project and the partners argue the rezoning trumps the proposed ordinance.

***

And then there are politicians, past and present.

A group led by retired Mayor Roger Hedgepeth, a force in town politics for decades, has organized to oppose the ordinance. Citizens Against Ordinance 1450 launched its counterattack last week, hiring a consulting firm to call Blacksburg homes and drum up opposition to the ordinance.

Hedgepeth has emerged as a major critic of the new council's development decisions. He has said he believes the ordinance will destroy the town's chance to attract retail businesses.

The tax revenue from those companies could help sustain public services in a time of ever tightening town budgets, he said. Many business owners and economic development advocates agree. But Councilman Langrehr has said he's not convinced the town needs a big-box store. Langrehr, as much as anyone at this point, represents the tectonic grinding of Blacksburg politics.

A New Jersey native and Radford University professor, Langrehr ran as a Green Party mayoral candidate against Hedgepeth in 2002, and lost. Elected as an independent to the council in 2004, he got help from Citizens First, a government watchdog group that opposed the Toms Creek sewer project. Since being elected, Langrehr has voted against the three Stosser projects that have come before him.

Langrehr said he's been amazed by the support for Ordinance 1450, and he's cautiously optimistic that the council will approve it.

He's also quick to point out that the ordinance does not ban big-box stores. It simply requires developers "to show why this project is special for Blacksburg," he said.

The most important part of the ordinance, according to Langrehr, is that it would allow more public debate on major retail developments that could transform the character of the town.

Both sides plan to mount their offensives at the town hall lectern tonight, where the debate is expected to go on for hours.