ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
Following several impassioned pleas to keep Toms Creek Basin largely untouched, the Blacksburg Planning Commission passed several measures Tuesday night that will redirect development of the town's largest tract of open space.
Current zoning in Toms Creek would allow development of cookie-cutter subdivisions, something town officials and residents, after two years of meetings and public hearings, decided was unacceptable. The following ordinances, which were approved Tuesday night, are supposed to change that.
* An amendment that creates three new zoning classifications: Rural Residential, Rural Residential II and the Creek Valley Overlay District.
Rural residential allows only one structure per acre with 50 percent of the land dedicated to open space, and promotes clustered developments.
Rural Residential II, a zoning classification gained only through an application process, would allow two structures per acre through voluntary land dedication agreements with other property owners.
The Creek Valley Overlay District would identify areas within the 100-year floodplain that are important to water quality protection.
* The rezoning of most of Toms Creek Basin, six miles of land bounded to the south by Prices Fork Road and to the north and west by the town corporate limits, to Rural Residential.
* Several amendments to the subdivision ordinance that would allow land in Rural Residential zones to retain its agricultural character. That would mean curbs and gutters wouldn't always be required and more narrow roads would be allowed.
* Inclusion of the Toms Creek Sector, with a detailed description of the area's main features, into the current 1991 Comprehensive Plan, which outlines the town's plans for future growth. This description then would carry over into the 1996 plan now being written.
The ordinances will go to Town Council for approval.
Several residents of Toms Creek, however, told the Planning Commission on Tuesday it should rethink its development plans and leave the area alone.
"Why are we so willing to surrender such natural green areas to bit-by-bit decimation, always under the illusion that this translates into 'improvement'?" wrote Allyn Moss in a letter read to the commission by a neighbor. "The prevailing attitude seems to be one that thinks nature needs to be cleaned up and prettified by us. That usually means, at the least, bulldozers, uprooted trees, widened roads and vanishing wildlife."
Bill McDonald, whose family has farmed in Toms Creek Basin since the 1700s, was concerned about how the open-space rule will affect farming and personal property rights to develop land.
Commission members stressed that town officials have worked for two years to reach a compromise between those who want to develop their land, people who want to continue farming and still others who enjoy living in a rural area.
Commission member Ron Rordam said the town is faced with three choices for the future of Toms Creek Basin: keeping the current zoning, prohibiting all future development, or rezoning the area to control development.
"Is that fair to those who have just lived here for a year and a half [to say] that no, no one else can live here?" he asked.
In other business:
* The Islamic Center of Blacksburg's bid for a special-use permit to move into a house at 701 Toms Creek Road, which is a residential area, was sent back to the proverbial drawing board - the development committee.
The organization, which now meets at the director's home, wants to use the property to house a library, educational materials and a computer with Internet access. Small meetings and organizational activities would be held there.
Commission members sent the application back to the development committee via the Town Council after the center's director, Tech professor Sedki Riad, asked for changes to the permit, including the frequency of meetings held during the holy month of Ramadan and the size of the group's outdoor sign. Several commission members had reservations about the permit because the house is in a residential area.
* Council approved a request to subdivide about 10 acres of land at Eheart and Piedmont streets into 13 lots for the Knob Hill Subdivision.
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