ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050059
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SMITH MOUNTAIN Lake is a magnet that has drawn a community to its shores - one community divided among three counties and, thus, three governing bodies. It is only sensible for lake residents to find ways to act together for their shared interests.
Last week's so-called summit, pulling together representatives from Bedford, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties, was a positive start toward that end.
The trick to planning for the future they want, as so many communities have realized, is to strike that elusive balance between having enough growth to make for a comfortable community, and managing that growth so as not to destroy the natural beauty and relaxed pace that make people want to live at the lake in the first place.
Sounds ideal - and hard to achieve.
Still, there was a remarkable amount of consensus at the summit, sponsored by the Smith Mountain Lake Policy Advisory Board and attended by planners, politicians, developers and representatives of Appalachian Power Co., which built the lake. While participants' ideas are just the beginning of a process that will try to incorporate the thinking of a wider public, they are a good starting point.
Among the obvious needs that surfaced in the discussions are a better road to connect the lake with Roanoke, and improvements to roads that carry heavy lake traffic, which they were not designed to handle. A park and nature trails around Apco's dam, and rental units served by boats in remote, undeveloped areas would open up the lake more as a regional recreation spot in which the public has some stake, amending its image as the pond for elite able to buy lakefront homes.
The pressure to provide more transportation and public access and develop more of the land around the lake underscores the need to protect both lake and land, however.
Among suggestions coming out of the conference: government partnerships with Apco for orderly development of 1,700 acres near Union Hall, tax breaks for landowners in exchange for preservation easements on open land, an environmental-impact tax for developers.
Such ideas, well worth consideration, argue for another proposal put forward: a central planning body with taxing and borrowing powers. That would allow for regional responses to issues that wash over governmental boundaries.
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