Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9310200097
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY staff writer
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The commission meets at 7 p.m. in Room 327 of the Montgomery Courthouse.
It will also consider the rezoning and special-use permit for a proposed trailer park in Elliston, which would open when a public water system is completed in late 1994.
Both issues brought opponents and supporters to a packed Board of Supervisors public hearing last month.
And both issues will go before the Board of Supervisors, once the Planning Commission makes its recommendations.
Seven of the Planning Commission's nine members met last week to consider the public comments, many of which criticized the open space plan as leading to an infringment on private property rights.
Members asked the planning staff to produce a cover letter, emphasizing that the plan relies on private-sector and individual-landowner initiatives to preserve and protect open space.
They also discussed a series of minor revisions to several sections of the 101-page draft.
Commission member Jim Martin, who is also running for the Board of Supervisors against incumbent Henry Jablonski, said the key will be making clear in the cover letter that the open-space initiative is an effort to help landowners, rather than hurt them.
Though the plan includes some mandatory features, such as buffers and increased flood-plain requirements on new buildings, the bulk of the plan attempts to provide planning tools the county doesn't have now, Planning Director Joe Powers said.
"There's too many other good things in this document to throw the baby out with the bathwater," he said.
Tom Johnson, a Virginia Tech professor and regional economic development commission member, sat in on the last commission meeting.
"People feel threatened," Johnson said. "These programs are not designed to erode rights. You must educate [people] that they're designed to strengthen some and broaden others."
Much of Montgomery's open-space planning initiative includes descriptions of the planning tools the county has now and how open-space resources, such as streams, forests and mountainsides, should be identified. Other sections involve land-use regulations and tools currently not being used in the county.
A final, 11-page section includes specific recommendations on ordinance and policy changes the Board of Supervisors should make to implement and open-space plan. The individual ordinance changes would require separate public hearings.
by CNB