Plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter are stirring controversy in Duluth.

Nearly 1,200 people have signed an online petition opposing the retail giant's plans to build a store on 27.5 acres on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, between Chattahoochee Drive and Sugarloaf Parkway. Worried residents from surrounding neighborhoods are calling and sending e-mails to Duluth City Hall and each other.

They will get a chance to voice concerns to Wal-Mart at a public meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Red Clay Theater on Duluth's Main Street.

Glen Wilkins, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart, said he looks forward to answering questions and setting the record straight about his employer's history and plans. He said he's heard from a number of residents who support the proposal for a third Wal-Mart in the area.

There are two within five miles of the proposed site --- one on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth and another in Suwanee.

"We're trying to relieve pressure on the other stores," said Wilkins. "We're following the rooftops and we're following the customers. Growth has been created, and we're responding to that growth."

Homeowner Len Boyer has lived in Canterbury Woods --- just across Peachtree Industrial from the proposed site --- for nine years. The operations manager for a general contractor, Boyer said he's obviously not opposed to development.

It's the scale of the proposed store, he said, that concerns him. The store would have 176,305 square feet.

As chairman of his subdivision's "Stop Wal-Mart" committee, he created a Web site --- www.smartgrowthgwinnett.com --- to chronicle the opposition and inform neighbors.

"I would love to see something go in there that fits" the area, he said. "As a homeowner and someone who works in development, I don't see how big box retail fits the letter of Duluth's zoning ordinances."

The proposed site is zoned for such businesses, but the retailer has asked the city of Duluth for exceptions to its zoning code, such as permission to have landscaping closer to the store and to construct a roof that's flat, rather than pitched.

Wal-Mart had planned to make its case June 27 at a meeting of the Duluth Zoning Board of Appeals.

Due to the protests, the retailer asked for its requests to be deferred for a month. It will make its presentation to the board on July 25.

In a memo posted on the city's Web site on July 6, the mayor and City Council sought to make sure that everyone understood the legal realities surrounding the proposed development --- namely, that the Peachtree Industrial land is already zoned for commercial development.

That means "a Wal-Mart store or any other similar retail development is allowed . . . " and that "Georgia law does not allow the city to prohibit the use as long as the project is developed in accordance with City of Duluth standards.

"As such," the memo concluded, "this matter will not come before the Mayor and Council."

Even so, resident Marline Santiago-Cook expressed her concerns at a council meeting Monday. She lives in the Castlemaine subdivision, across Peachtree Industrial from the proposed site. A few of her neighbors from nearby subdivisions were in the audience as well.

She told the mayor and council she knew they wouldn't have the ultimate say in the matter but said she just wanted to go on the record as someone who loved the city and the area.

"We're not anti-growth and development," she said. "We just think it's too big for that location, and that something like the Forum in Norcross would be a better fit."