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GREENSBORO — Same song, different verse: Another proposed development, another neighborhood mobilizing to defeat it.

How much sway should neighbors and developers have? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

This go-around, neighbors in the Kirkwood and Old Irving Park neighborhoods are trying to stop a Walgreens from being built at Cornwallis and Lawndale drives.

Neighbors will meet tonight to figure out ways to stop the development, which needs rezoning approval from the Greensboro City Council to be built.

If the board votes against the rezoning, then the development can't get built.

The council was scheduled to address the issue Dec. 18. But the developer will ask the council to postpone its decision until Jan. 15, so representatives can reach a compromise with neighbors.

The developer planned to add two-story town houses on the site, located in the crowded, confusing Battleground Avenue corridor. But after a recent meeting with neighbors, the developer has "gone back to the drawing board," said commercial broker Henry Carrison Jr. of NAI Piedmont Triad, which represents Charlotte-based developer Tribek Properties.

City Councilman Robbie Perkins is NAI's president.

Changing the neighbors' minds will be a tough sell. Anne Hummel, a Kirkwood resident and one of the opposition's leaders, said people don't like the idea of a drugstore and asphalt parking lot in the middle of their neighborhood.

True. The neighborhood is bordered by retail space on three sides, Hummel said. But she said that's all the more reason to keep another one out.

"I haven't come across anyone yet who thinks a Walgreens there is a good idea, except the developer," Hummel said.

It's not just the neighbors who think it's a bad idea. The city's planning department opposed the plan, saying it's not compatible with the single-family homes that would encircle it.

"If approved," city planners wrote in a report, "it will put pressure on surrounding properties and encourage additional commercial intrusion into the neighborhood."

The zoning commission also opposed the plan, but the City Council can override that decision.

Hummel said she expects a large crowd at the organization meeting tonight. She and other neighborhood leaders will pass out yard signs, a familiar tactic when residents oppose a development. The signs say: "NO Walgreens. Stop Rezoning."

Contact Margaret Moffett Banks at 373-7031 or mbanks@news-record.com