When Wal-Mart moves next door, neighbors frequently expect murderous traffic, skyrocketing crime and plummeting property values.

But a look at the effects of the Wal-Mart Supercenter that opened in Bonsack in the fall of 2002 doesn't show that reality.

Even so, a dozen Clearbrook residents who are fighting the construction of a similar store say their neighborhood -- with an elementary school just across the street from the Wal-Mart site -- just isn't the right place for the nation's largest retailer.

They're taking their case to court Monday, when a judge will consider the merits of their legal challenge. They are trying to force Roanoke County's board of supervisors to reconsider approval of the project.

No matter the location, it's a given that any business that draws thousands of shoppers a week will bring consequences.

A company spokeswoman said Wal-Mart tries to work with its neighbors every time it opens a store. "We encourage people to visit other stores and talk to neighbors where we've opened in other locations," Kelly Hobbs said. "We think they'll see that Wal-Mart is a good neighbor and a benefit to local communities through jobs, tax dollars and charitable giving."

Near the Bonsack store, some residents say they do notice more traffic around Christmas, and see the occasional plastic grocery bag snagged in a tree or the glow of streetlights bouncing off low clouds.

But property values in the neighborhood closest to the store appear to have increased at least as fast as the county average, and in some cases, significantly faster.

County crime statistics show no disproportionate spikes in the area since the Wal-Mart opened, police say. Traffic on U.S. 460 has increased, but no faster than the trend before the store was built.

Still, some Clearbrook residents contend, there are significant differences in the two locations.

For one thing, the Wal-Mart there will be directly across from an elementary school. The latest plans for the supercenter call for all traffic to enter at a traffic light at Clearbrook Village Lane on U.S. 220 just south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. That light will be shared by the school, a volunteer fire department and rescue squad, three medical offices and residents who live on either side of 220.

For another, traffic could increase more at the Clearbrook site than it did at Bonsack. Traffic on the stretch of highway at a Wal-Mart a mile north of the proposed Clearbrook site already is 46 percent higher than on the stretch in front of the new store site.

Any predictions are questionable, however, because so many factors come into play, said Jason Bond, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Clearbrook might actually see only a small increase in traffic "because we know some traffic is using 220 to get to that store now," Bond said.

Along 460 in Bonsack, "We can make a general comment that traffic has grown, but to attribute that to Wal-Mart or any other development ... is a stretch," he said.

That corridor, for instance, also has seen an extensive residential boom, as evidenced by the spread of houses on the hillside behind the Wal-Mart. That began years before Wal-Mart built there and continued unabated afterward.

Clearbrook developer Holrob Associates delivered its latest access plans to Roanoke County and VDOT officials last week. Those abandon an earlier design that would have routed all southbound traffic into the store's parking lot at a new entrance to be constructed across from the intersection with Buck Mountain Road.

When the Roanoke County supervisors approved the special-use permit allowing the project, they were told that some 60 percent of the store's traffic would never pass in front of the elementary school because of that new intersection.

Now all traffic, including deliveries, will turn in front of the school at the Clearbrook Village Lane traffic light.

Supervisor Butch Church raised that concern when he cast the only vote against the project last fall. Traffic at the school "has to go up," he contended. "It's gotten dangerous out there on 220. It's been dangerous for many years, and all this can do is make it worse."

Teresa Becher, the county's transportation engineering manager, said the latest plan calls for "high-traffic land uses for the outparcels," which means the figures should not underestimate traffic. Using a trip-generation formula from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the developers estimate there will be 10,500 trips per day to the new Clearbrook Wal-Mart, and another 4,935 to the outparcels, whose tenants have not been determined but might include a fast-food restaurant and a sit-down restaurant.

Happy to be here

If Bonsack is typical, for every homeowner who hates the idea of living next door to a Wal-Mart Supercenter, there's another who's delighted.

"I love it," said Suni Heflin, who can see Wal-Mart's roof from her front yard.

"It's the convenience, hands down," that makes the location an attraction, said Heflin, a real estate agent. She bought a house on the street behind the Bonsack store last year.

As has been true in numerous other real estate transactions in the neighborhood, the house she bought in July for $177,000 had appreciated in value well ahead of the county's housing stock as a whole. It had last sold in 2002 for $129,000 -- an increase in value of more than 9 percent a year.

Others were closer to the average of 5 percent a year, but at least one other house rose almost 10 percent in value each year between 2003 and 2005.

"I want to be way out in Botetourt in the country, and so does my husband. But I have a hard time gripping the idea of moving away from a Wal-Mart and Lowe's," Heflin said.

She's sold several houses in the subdivisions behind the supercenter in recent years.

A couple with two small children considered the proximity of the store a convenience, Heflin said. "They loved the idea. It was a feature of the house almost." For older buyers, "it's still a feature. If you can't get out far because of snow or ice, it's a great thing to be at Wal-Mart in two minutes."

The traffic "is not burdensome," Heflin said, and she contends "nothing is compromising our safety."

That's not to say that the number of cars, traffic accidents and citizens' calls for service hasn't increased in the neighborhood.

VDOT figures show a steady increase in traffic over the years, but Roanoke County Police Department figures show that accident rates near the Wal-Mart declined by 40 percent from 2005 to 2006. That continued what began as a modest decline from 37 accidents in 2004 to 35 in 2005.

Pinning down crime statistics for the neighborhood is more difficult. Since 2000, the police department's reporting districts have shifted and been renumbered three times.

The creation of an entirely new district and the addition of manpower assigned to it in 2005 was a direct result of the increased activity at Wal-Mart and the nearby Lowe's, said police Lt. David McMillan.

However, he cautioned that the new stores were only part of the reason for the bolstered presence there. The construction of a group of apartment complexes behind the stores and a growing middle school nearby also contributed, he said.

With the opening of Wal-Mart in 2002 and Lowe's in 2005, the county did see an immediate increase in the full range of "citizens' calls for service" as customers began frequenting the stores.

Although calls dropped in 2005 and 2006 from their peak in 2004, there were still almost 350 calls last year.

Dominating those were bogus 911 calls, reports of shoplifting and traffic accidents in the parking lot. "The parking lots are definitely crazy," Heflin said.

There were three calls about assaults and one robbery -- a woman's ex-boyfriend was accused of taking her purse -- reported at Wal-Mart in 2006, the county said. There were also two sex offenses reported -- one the groping of a customer by a stranger and the other involving one employee accused of touching the leg of another during a training session. Neither resulted in an arrest, the department reported.

An analysis of calls to streets of nearby neighborhoods also shows few reports of violent crime and no pattern of an increase after the opening of the stores.

Fear and loathing

On a hill just a few hundred yards down the road from where the Clearbrook store is slated to go up, Judy Hawks can look through the trees at the field where the parking lot will be.

"I never would have moved here if I knew Wal-Mart was coming," Hawks said.

She and her husband bought the ranch home on 1.5 acres off Amanda Lane four years ago. They were willing to go with an older, smaller, oil-heated house that was not exactly what they wanted in exchange for the bucolic location.

They knew that the county had rezoned a wide swath of nearby properties to commercial a couple of years before, but, Hawks said, "we thought we were protected by the overlay."

The Clearbrook Village Overlay District was created in 2001 "to promote future development that is consistent with the current character of Clearbrook," its introduction says.

Area residents helped craft the development restrictions, acknowledging the changing character of their neighborhood from residential to commercial.

The ordinance says commercial development is encouraged by the plan, "but strip commercial patterns of development are discouraged. Thus, the district allows a wide variety of commercial uses, but provides a high degree of emphasis on landscaping, building design, site design, and lighting and signage control."

It also contains a provision Holrob took advantage of:

"A special use permit shall be required for any retail use or development that exceeds fifty thousand (50,000) square feet of gross floor area."

Hawks insists she is "not opposed to development. If this were a 50,000-square-foot Wal-Mart, I would not oppose it."

Instead, she said, the county approved a project four times the size allowed by right in the district, which she and some of her neighbors contend violates the spirit if not the letter of the ordinance.

"We're talking about 1,000 parking spaces. If we're going to destroy the land, we should get something we need, like high-tech jobs," Hawks said.

She is one of a dozen nearby property owners who joined the lawsuit against the county over its approval of the project.

Banded together under the rubric Citizens for Smart Growth (www.citizensforsmartgrowthroanoke.com) and led by county activist Pam Berberich, the group alleges the county failed to follow its own procedures and improperly approved the development without having all the information it should have.

The group that filed suit was drawn from a larger contingent of people opposed to Wal-Mart's plans, some of whom declined to join the legal case because of a belief "that you can't fight city hall," Hawks said.

The dozen, however, were willing to hire a Richmond lawyer experienced in fighting Wal-Mart and to raise the $50,000 or more it could take to pursue their effort to preserve the neighborhood's character.

"This is how naive I am," Hawks said. "I thought we would be getting some nice little shops. Maybe a Coldwater Creek. Maybe pizza delivery."

Instead, she said, she and many of her neighbors "feel betrayed by one of our own," Cave Spring Supervisor Mike Wray.

Before his election, Wray served on the citizens committee that helped draft the overlay district ordinance. He voted in October with the majority to allow the Wal-Mart.

"Am I crazy about this? No," Wray said at the time. "Not with the size of this. But I know that we have done everything we possibly could as a community to make" it meet the concerns of the neighbors.

He also said he expected the developer "to continue to work with these citizens, and if you do anything less than is required, if you balk, you don't go. You'll be the first one to be shut down."