ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602020003
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
Since 1990, the Islamic Center of Blacksburg has met in the home of Virginia Tech Engineering Professor Sedki Riad. Now, the nonprofit educational and social organization wants a more permanent home.
Before the group can move into the house it is purchasing at 701 Toms Creek Road, however, it must apply for a special-use permit. The home is in a residential neighborhood, but the group would be using it as an office. A public hearing before the Planning Commission will be held Tuesday.
Riad said the building will house a library, educational materials and a computer with Internet access. Small meetings, organizational activities and occasional visits from scholars who are speaking on campus also would be held at the house.
Daily activities, according to the permit application, would involve about 10 people, while special meetings would bring in no more than 30.
"Our purpose is information dissemination," said Riad, who added that the group's membership includes the community as well as Tech students.
One concern raised in a letter sent to the town's planning and engineering department is that the house would be used for regular prayer meetings. According to the town's zoning ordinance, places of religious assembly require a larger lot size than offices do, and fall under a separate zoning category.
Riad said the group does not plan to hold regular prayer meetings in the house, because those are held on campus. He objects, however, to the special-use permit's prohibition against prayer. Muslims pray individually several times a day, and Riad said those prayers may come when members of the Islamic Center are at the house.
"As Muslims, we pray where we're working," he explained at a recent committee meeting. "I pray in my office, I pray at home; if I'm in the airport, I pray right there."
The planning and engineering department plans to eliminate that clause from the permit. Instead, the permit will spell out the number of regular meetings that can be held at the house, including prayer meetings and other formal religious assembly.
Other public hearings at Tuesday's Planning Commission meeting include:
A look at amendments to the town's zoning ordinance that would create three classifications in the Toms Creek Basin: rural residential, rural residential II and the Creek Valley Overlay District. These classifications, which direct a clustered development of homes and small retail areas, were created to maintain the area's rural character as it is developed through the years.
Rural residential allows one housing unit per acre with 50 percent of the property designated for open space. Rural residential II allows property owners in the basin to transfer their property rights to the town to preserve open space, farm land and forests. The Creek Valley Overlay District identifies land adjacent to a 100-year flood plain that is important to water quality protection.
Most of the Toms Creek Basin - which includes land bounded on the east by the U.S. 460 bypass and on the south by Prices Fork Road - would be zoned rural residential. A separate public hearing will be held Tuesday on the actual Toms Creek Basin rezoning.
Herbert Alcorn's request to divide about 10 acres at Eheart and Piedmont streets into a 13-lot subdivision. The Planning Commission approved a preliminary plat for the subdivision in 1994, but Alcorn, of Park Realty, let it expire after a year because the housing market was down.
Now that the market has improved, Alcorn is re-applying for a preliminary plat. The only changes in the plans are the purchase of an additional lot and the relocation of a storm water detention pond.
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