
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990                   TAG: 9006290507
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

APARTMENTS FIGHT REVIVES

Residents of Georgetown Park and Greenwood Forest are ready to fight again over a planned apartment complex on Colonial Avenue at Ogden Road in Southwest Roanoke County.

Two summers ago, hundreds of residents of those subdivisions wrote letters, signed petitions and packed public meetings in opposition to a proposal to rezone the 25-acre site to allow construction of 264 apartments.

Despite that, the rezoning was approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Now the developer is requesting a change in one of the conditions agreed to at the time of the rezoning.

Plans originally called for the complex to have 146 one-bedroom and 118 two-bedroom apartments.

Now the developer - Edward Rose & Sons/Occidental Development Ltd. of Indianapolis, Ind. - wants to build 92 one-bedroom, 140 two-bedroom and 32 three-bedroom apartments.

There would be no change in the site plan or in the number of apartments in the complex. But there would be 86 more bedrooms.

"We're definitely going to be there against it" when the request goes before the county Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, said David Courey, president of the Georgetown Park Civic Association.

The developer's local attorney, Donald Wetherington, said the developer wants to increase the number of bedrooms because of market changes.

County Planning Director Terry Harrington said it's hard to evaluate the impact of the change on traffic and on nearby schools - particularly Green Valley elementary. "A lot depends on who they market the apartments to."

If the developer sticks with earlier plans to market the apartments to young professionals and "empty nesters" - older couples whose children have left home - there might not be a big impact.

Supervisor Dick Robers, who represents that part of the county, got a lot of heat from residents after voting in favor of the rezoning two years ago. But he has doubts about this request.

Increasing the number of bedrooms in the apartment complex "will have more of an impact on traffic and schools," he said Thursday. "That causes me some concern."

by CNB