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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993                   TAG: 9403180015
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A18   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VALLEY BEAUTIFUL

This Ed McMahon is director of the American Greenways Program, and he was delivering a message of timely importance to the Roanoke Valley:

Growth is inevitable and desirable.

Successful communities build their growth around special assets.

Man-made or natural, a historic district or a mountain range - or both - a community's special assets are whatever gives it a distinctive flavor. They give people a sense of place, a sense of that community's roots. They make the place more livable and, in doing so, more attractive for residents, visitors and new businesses.

And what are the Roanoke Valley's special assets from this visitor's view? Not surprisingly, Roanoke's downtown market area and the Blue Ridge Parkway were two he ticked off immediately.

Do these need to be protected? Yes. Does that mean an end to growth or development? Of course not.

McMahon is a conservationist, yes. But he is also a land-use planning expert, and his message was not hostile to development. It was, rather, that development must be carefully planned and guided, both to preserve the unique assets of the community that attract growth in the first place, and to ensure that development is compatible with the character of the community.

It was a message that should have played as well before an audience of developers as before the Valley Beautiful, Explore Park and garden club folks who sponsored McMahon's appearance. Why? Because communities that preserve their unique attractions, that are careful stewards of their scenic beauty, find that property values go up and businesses move in.

So if conservationists and developers can agree with McMahon that growth is good, and growth should be built around an area's special assets, what should be done in the Roanoke Valley? A lot of things, but you can't help observing that one very special asset, the Blue Ridge Parkway, has been at the center of one development fight and is sure to be at the center of more.

McMahon suggests the valley needs a land trust, which would provide for a private, nonprofit group to accept and hold easements on land. In exchange for tax deductions, owners would agree to preserve land from development, but it would remain under private ownership.

The land is one thing that makes the valley special. A land trust is an idea whose time should come, the sooner the better.

McMahon also suggests that the region develop a "vision for the future." That just happens to be something a good number of local leaders are working on now.

In developing that vision, they would do well to ask themselves three questions offered by McMahon:

What kind of community do you want to live in?

What do you want your community to look like?

What are you building today that will be worth preserving in the future?

"Subdivisions" can't be the only answer to all three.