Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 7, 1993 TAG: 9310070302
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yale Rabin got a quick drive around Roanoke on Wednesday.
The urban planner from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw what's happened to Gainsboro over the last 30 years.
"One terrible thing is the amount of damage that's been done already," he said. "The remains of the neighborhood is just a fraction of what it once was. It makes it that much more of a shame."
The "it" is the city's plan, along with those of the Virginia Department of Transportation, to build two four-lane loops for downtown traffic through the oldest neighborhood in town.
Gainsboro leaders brought two Washington lawyers, the MIT urban scholar and a Maryland traffic engineer to Roanoke on Wednesday to talk with state transportation officials and then with residents.
Devarieste Curry, with the Washington law firm of Beveridge & Diamond, told about 60 people at Harrison Museum of African American Culture on Wednesday night she thinks they have a good legal cause against the roads.
"We think you have some answers out there in the law books that are on your side," she said.
Her firm gets hundreds of requests to do free legal work every year, she said, and they take only the best cases. "We would not be in here with our time and effort if we didn't think they had a strong case," she said after the meeting organized by the Historic Gainsboro Preservation District Coalition.
Her law firm's still working on possible tacks to take - such as civil rights law, being used increasingly against environmental problems dumped on minority communities.
She said traffic experts hired by her firm are examining downtown traffic projections that led city engineers years ago to propose the roads. "It's not at all clear," Curry said, "that the amount of traffic being projected will ever materialize."
Even if they file a suit, the law alone can't protect Gainsboro, she said. Its fate also depends on "how loudly you scream and how persistent you are," Curry told a room full of Roanokers.
She urged them to write members of Congress, city and state officials and any other politicians who might help. She said letters are more persuasive than petitions.
Residents asked Curry why the roads' plans sailed through city channels, at least until Historic Gainsboro got involved two years ago. "I don't know if over the years you've been asleep or not," Curry responded.
Rabin, a national expert on government disruption of black neighborhoods, said planners of highways and other development have wiped out black communities across America. "They consider it the cheapest right-of-way acquisition. . . . And two, they figure they're running through a community with the least political clout."
Curry, Rabin and Historic Gainsboro President Evelyn Bethel met Wednesday afternoon with state transportation officials, who promised to share data supporting the city's claim that without the roads, downtown traffic will be snarled in about 20 years.
Jack Hodge, the state's top traffic engineer, said after the meeting that he hoped refining road designs will make them more agreeable to Gainsboro residents.
But, he warned, both the Wells Avenue and the Second Street/Gainsboro Road projects are proceeding quickly toward construction.
The state's rapidly buying up property to build the roads, according to Hodge. Both roads have won state and city approval.
Roanoke Public Works Director Bill Clark said Wednesday that two homes on Wells Avenue across from the Hotel Roanoke have been purchased, and the city's investigating whether they can be moved to other Gainsboro lots or will be torn down. He said at least one of the five commercial buildings to be demolished on Wells has been acquired.
As for the need for the roads, Hodge said there's no question about it. If they aren't built, he said, downtown Roanoke will have increasing traffic on narrow streets in the years to come.
Curry said she'd like to resolve Gainsboro's problems without litigation and is eager to talk further with state and city officials. It's unclear, however, what changes - other than a cessation of construction plans - would satisfy her clients.
Many in the audience at the Harrison Museum asked Curry whether they should get get independent appraisals of their Gainsboro properties and how they can negotiate with the government for good sale prices. The implication was that the roads are going to be built anyway.
Dr. Walter Claytor, a Gainsboro dentist, said he wished residents would stop sounding so defeatist and ask the lawyers instead "how to get that road out of my neighborhood."
Thomas Jones, 44, said he grew up in Gainsboro, "and my roots are gone. I can't take my sons and say, `Come on, I'll show you where I lived when I was a little boy.' There's a Coca-Cola plant there."
"Just sue 'em," he told the lawyers.
by CNB