ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003092208
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: W-4   EDITION: WEST 
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: NEW CASTLE                                 LENGTH: Medium


APARTMENT BID RENEWED

With revised plans, the Craig County Board of Supervisors will try again to win a grant to convert the old New Castle High School building into apartments for the low-income elderly.

The revised plan adds four more living units to the high school proposal - making a total of 16 - and drops the old Maywood Elementary School building.

The supervisors, at their meeting Monday, approved the plans and authorized filing an application for $700,000 in a Community Development Block Grant.

Last year a grant was denied to the county because the high school proposal did not contain enough living units.

Last year's application was seeking enough to convert the old Maywood building into elderly apartments but that was denied also because Maywood is in a rural area away from stores and medical facilities.

Maywood is off Virginia 42, west of Sinking Creek.

Under the revised plan, part of the old high school would be converted into two efficiency apartments, two 2-bedroom units and 12 one bedroom apartments.

The building also would contain a kitchen and dining room for those who did not want to do their own cooking, a lounge and library, an arts and crafts room and a laundry.

Mills, Oliver & Webb, Inc. of Blacksburg is architect for the project.

Jeffrey Johnson, county administrator, said the living units would be rented to elderly people whose incomes are under about $16,400 a year. The rent, he said, would be based on income but would amount to no more than 30 percent of the resident's annual gross income.

A portion of the building, mainly the gym, would be kept for future development.

In another matter, the supervisors learned that 60 people in Craig used the services of the Mental Health Services of Roanoke Valley in the last three months of 1989. Craig has been a full member of the mental health agency only since last fall.

Of the 60 people using services of the agency, 38 used the child and adolescent prevention services. Of the others, nine used counseling services, eight used facilities at the Salem-Roanoke County Center and five required emergency services.



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