Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 19, 1994 TAG: 9408190061
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
While the project is in preliminary planning stages, its backers have already begun talking to town and county officials about rezoning land to allow them to build a community of houses, condominiums, recreational and commercial facilities.
A public information meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 1 from 3-9 p.m. in the Blacksburg Community Center, said Bob Rogers, an architect with Architectural Alternatives Inc.
Rogers is working with project manager Wendell White and civil engineer Robert Steele, both of Virginia Beach, to design the community. Floyd County partners William Farr and Joseph Edone hold options on the land, and are waiting to see if it can be rezoned.
The project, if built, would sit on 56.5 acres of Blacksburg land bordered by North Main Street from Giles Road to Mount Tabor Road, with the remainder in the county.
To proceed, the developers want the land rezoned for a mixture of types of housing and commercial uses. It is currently zoned almost entirely residential; the backers want the town to rezone the land to planned commercial district and planned development residential, and the county to rezone its land to planned unit development.
"It'll be a ways off before any construction would start," said Rogers, who said the rezoning process would have to proceed through the fall and winter months, with actual construction at least a year away and completion more than a decade from now. The project fits well "with the image of Blacksburg as a retirement community," he said.
White and Rogers described a community that would feature commercial and community facilities such as a bank, a grocery store, professional offices and some retail shops in the Blacksburg portion. In the county, a mixture of housing types - patio homes, single-family condominiums, town homes and apartments - would dot the landscape. The community would also contain a recreation center, swimming pool and other group facilities.
White said adjacent landowners will be pleased when they learn details of the project, and said the building sites "will be buffered in such a way that it will really enhance their property." He estimated the cost of building just the residential facilities at $200 million.
"We're going to do the very best we can to do a first-class job," White said. The project team decided to hold the informational meeting because, "the worst thing you can do is come up for rezoning without anyone knowing what you're doing."
Town and county officials are just beginning to learn details of the project.
Adele Schirmer, Blacksburg's director of planning and engineering, said the backers hope to take advantage of the views of the rolling hills and woods, and pledge to keep about 80 acres, almost 30 percent of the site, undeveloped as greenways and open space.
The developers would pay to extend water and sewer lines to the site, Schirmer said.
Town Councilman Lewis Barnett, a strong promoter of Blacksburg's retirement haven image, had not seen any specific details, but said he would support it in theory.
In the county, zoning would have to change to planned unit development, a classification not yet on the books that is being reviewed by the county's planning staff.
Under a planned-unit development, a local government allows a landowner to mix high- and low-density residential housing with some commercial uses rather than rigidly separating business and residential uses as is traditional; it is designed to make more efficient use of land.
The designation "is intended to encourage ingenuity, imagination and high quality design on the part of the developer," according to a draft zoning revision distributed to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors last month.
Supervisor Henry Jablonski briefed the Montgomery Planning Commission on the project Wednesday night.
The local governments might join forces to hold public hearings and take other steps as the plans are considered. "We haven't figured out how to handle it yet," Powers said.
- Staff writer Brian Kelley contributed information for this story.
by CNB