Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9410310008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Several decisions this year by a sharply divided board show the county's inability or unwillingness to grapple with the complex issues of planning and growth at a time when our once rural county is galloping into urbanization.
Less than a year ago, the board rejected a modest proposal to encourage the preservation of open space. In the past two weeks, a majority of the supervisors also rejected another proposal to cope with development sweeping over the county's agricultural heartland. One supervisor actually rebuked the county's Planning Commission for daring to propose a change in the county's zoning ordinance.
Developers or landowners now can build dense subdivisions with half-acre lots in farming districts. The proposed change would not have prevented farmland from being developed; it would have required only that the supervisors rezone the land residential - giving them a chance to review the development. These subdivisions are spreading out where there is no water or sewer service, where schools are crowded, where two-lane farm roads are filled with commuters.
In the past month, the supervisors also rejected a routine request for conservation designation for land owned by a Radford University professor, Justin Askins. His neighbor, Supervisor Joe Stewart, objected to including Askins' land in an agricultural and forest district program because Askins wants to preserve his property from ever being developed.
The message is pretty clear - whether you are the county's planning officials, a developer or landowner: Don't discuss land use, don't seek innovative ways to unite development and open space, or - even worse - mention conserving your land. We don't want to deal with this problem.
Yet as a community, we have to deal with growth that is only going to escalate as the "smart road" and superstores add greater development pressures on our area.
Unfortunately, the track record for most communities isn't good. Most wake up years too late and realize they've paved themselves over, that they've missed the chance to preserve their community's uniqueness and shape growth so it enhances their community.
This is not just a cause for handwringing by environmentalists. It's also an economic development issue. Talk of the smart road has led to projections of millions of dollars and thousands of new jobs in research companies coming to the valley. These are the very type of businesses where "quality of life" will be a significant factor in attracting firms.
Yet without the leadership to wrestle with the issues of land use and to make tough decisions on rural development, are we about to squander the very assets that are our greatest selling point?
This is not a simple subject. Supervisors are right to be concerned about reasonable housing, about preserving the financial value of a farmer's land, often his sole financial asset. Wise development, though, can enhance the future value of both that home and the farmland.
The supervisors should also be commended for considering special zoning and development guidelines for the Route 177 area outside Radford, which will come under intense development pressures when the new Radford hospital is built.
Our argument is really with ourselves, not the supervisors. Their constituents knew in voting for them that supervisors such as Ira Long and Joe Stewart have a strong distrust of land-use regulations.
Next fall four of the seven supervisors come up for election. Chairman Larry Linkous is already planning to step down, probably to run for the House of Delegates. Also up for election are Supervisors Nick Rush, Ira Long and Joe Gorman. Gorman is the only one of the four who supported the open space plan.
The choice is ours.
Ultimately, our community will reflect what we value. We can watch it grow haphazardly until we stare out onto roads indistinguishable from a hundred other highways in a hundred other towns. Or we can anticipate the future and strive for solutions that will protect our natural beauty and encourage well-planned development.
Elizabeth Obenshain is the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River editor.
by CNB