Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 21, 1994 TAG: 9405230138
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The joint hearings with the Planning Commission will begin at 7 p.m. on the third floor of the Montgomery County Courthouse in Christiansburg. The supervisors will not make decisions on any of the issues that night.
Two of the public hearings - one on building a new trailer park in Elliston, and a second for a proposed cellular telephone tower on Paris Mountain - have generated opposition from neighbors.
The third hearing will be on rezoning 96 acres in the first three sections of what could eventually become Montgomery County's largest subdivision, Heritage Place, located just west of Christiansburg.
It has generated little opposition since it was first publicized three months ago, but will have a major effect on the rolling farmland between U.S. 11 and Mud Pike.
The supervisors also will hold a public hearing on the eight candidates for two short-term county School Board appointments. Advocates of or opponents to any of the eight applicants will have their chance to weigh in before the supervisors, who will make the appointments on June 13.
Peggy Arrington and Wat Hopkins are seeking the District G seat being vacated by Don Lacy. In District B, School Board Vice Chairman Bob Goncz has reapplied for his seat and is facing competition from Suzanne G. Hamrick, Dr. S. Ross Mackay, Deborah G. Mayo, Dan Neel and Delores Snell.
The Elliston proposal marks the second time around for Frank Howard's effort to build a trailer park on 18 acres off U.S. 11/460 near the Roanoke County line.
Howard withdrew his original bid to rezone the land at Cove Hollow Road and Allen Drive in November in the face of an expected defeat before the Board of Supervisors, which was missing two of its seven members that night.
This time, Howard has redesigned the park to include five larger lots suitable for double-wide trailers. That step is designed to provide a buffer between the closest neighbors and the more densely developed 68-lot main section of the park.
Eight months ago, when the proposal first came up for a public hearing, neighbors objected to the project because they said it wouldn't fit in with the rural area, would pose a safety risk for children because of the adjacent Norfolk Southern rail line and would strain the capacity of the local schools.
Opponents submitted a 352-name petition against the park then; but backers turned in a 312-name tally of supporters, many of them residents of the Shawsville and Elliston area's other trailer parks.
The Paris Mountain tower proposal, meanwhile, involves opposition from residents of the Ellett Valley, many of them owners of expensive homes overlooking the site where Contel Cellular wants to erect a 185-foot tower to improve coverage for the Blacksburg Country Club and other areas in the valley.
Former Virginia Tech president T. Marshall Hahn Jr., owner of the 1,000-plus-acre Hickory Hill Farm on Lusters Gate Road, added his voice to the opposition with a memo to the Board of Supervisors. Hahn's farm abuts the land where James P. Clouse wants to allow Contel Cellular to build the tower.
Hahn, who retired in December as chairman of Georgia-Pacific Corp., urged the supervisors to reject the proposal because, "Clearly, such an imposing and invasive structure would mar the area's scenic beauty and materially depress property values."
A group of Ellett residents have formed Save Ellett's Rural Vistas, or SERV, to fight the proposal.
by CNB