Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508070054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AMSTERDAM LENGTH: Long
"I think [Governor] George Allen is taking us down this road," David Mankin said. "Virginia has always been a beautiful state. I don't know why all of a sudden we have to be industrial."
Angry words and hard feelings seem to abound these days around Amsterdam after the county announced plans last month for a school, recreation area and industrial park on what until now has been farmland.
About 200 Botetourt residents gathered Thursday night at Lord Botetourt High School to express their displeasure. About 100 of them signed petitions opposing the project and donated a box full of money to the cause.
"We don't want it," said Sherry Bowman, who lives near the proposed project. "That's why we moved from the city of Salem." Preston Clark, another nearby property owner, was equally adamant.
"I don't go for it," he said. "I don't think we need it."
At his dining room table, David Mankin offered his own blunt assessment.
"I think we are trading beauty for money," he said.
While he admits that he's getting involved because he'd have an industrial park for a neighbor, Mankin sees the proposed Botetourt Center at Greenfield as government at its worst.
"I think the Board of Supervisors is saying to citizens, 'You're not smart enough to run your own business. Let us put you on the right track.'''
Part of his resentment is based on the fact that a $4.5 million land deal was negotiated behind closed doors and that a plan for its development was announced before citizens could express ideas on how the 922-acre tract should be used.
Mankin said he will solicit help in fighting the project from other citizens' groups throughout the county.
Jeanne Lucas, a former vice president of the Cloverdale Civic League, was in attendance Thursday night and hopes the Cloverdale group will join the opposition.
"I'm very encouraged by the turnout and attitudes I saw," she said. "I have seen the way the county's let developers strip the land. I resent that this was done behind closed doors and we were told that's the way it's going to be."
Lucas said some resident feel powerless to stop the project.
"I'm still talking to people who say they hate it, but they think it's too late," she said. "Of course, it's not."
Supervisors Chairman Bob Layman, who represents the Amsterdam District, said opposition to the proposed project is a minority view.
"I'm getting 99 percent of the people who talk to me that say it is the best thing that has happened to Botetourt County," he said. "I have people who say they would rather have the park next to them than 1,600 houses."
Layman said the Greenfield project is essential as the county tries to bolster its tax base. Ideally, he says, a county should have a minimum of 15 percent industry in order to keep residents from paying excessive taxes. About 8 percent of the county's tax base is industrial now.
In addition, Layman argues that if Greenfield had been developed as a residential community, the amount of traffic could have been about three times as much as that created by the proposed industrial center, school and recreation area.
Layman said the lay of the land will not allow high-density industrial development.
"Greenfield has hills you can't do anything with," he said.
The supervisors' chairman said the county will develop the strictest deed restrictions it ever has imposed on an industrial park. They will require industries to conform on items such as open spaces, the types of signs used and building materials.
Mankin said he believes the supervisors are stacking the deck against those with dissenting opinions. By law, the supervisors must authorize the county's purchase of land. They also must agree to its rezoning.
On the county's comprehensive plan - a blueprint for the development - the Greenfield site is shown as farmland. The supervisors will have to decide whether to rezone for commercial and industrial business more than 600 acres of the land they bought.
"We have 920 acres of the most beautiful land in Botetourt County," Mankin said. "I don't see any reason to convert it to asphalt."
Layman said the supervisors are attempting to be responsive to those concerns. They have already scheduled public information meetings for Thursday and Aug. 29 at Lord Botetourt High School to seek citizen input. Those meetings will be in addition to four public hearings required by law when the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors consider changing the comprehensive plan and zoning to accommodate the Greenfield project.
Bob Bagnoli, who serves with Mankin as spokesmen for Citizens for Responsible Land Use In Botetourt County, argues that the need for industrial land is not the economic imperative depicted by the supervisors.
Bagnoli notes the county has a substantial amount of money in reserve: $15.4 million by the county's calculations and $19 million according to one citizen, Gene Crotty, a retired accounting professor who has analyzed the county's audit.
"We don't seem to need the money," Bagnoli said. "We don't seem to have an employment problem in the county. The needs we are trying to satisfy are not particularly pressing."
County Administrator Gerald Burgess said having a cash reserve for certain contingencies simply makes good sense. The county has money set aside for cost overruns on projects and possible unforeseen expenditures necessary to woo new industry.
Burgess said those cash reserves played a critical role in the county's ability to get an A-1 bond rating on a recent bond issue, which allowed the county to get a low interest rate on the money it received.
Bagnoli said he sees no pressing need to break with the existing comprehensive plan and zone Greenfield for industrial purposes.
"I think that scattered development leads to chaotic development," he said. "This not only jumps out of the industrial pockets. This jumps off the page."
Bagnoli said putting the supervisors in charge of that process is not in the citizens' best interest.
"It is the fox watching the chickens," he said.
Mankin said he hopes citizens will be watching the supervisors.
"I think the people should be in charge and not the planners," he said. "Man has never changed nature and improved it. Nature is the master architect."
by CNB