ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701280125
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
MILL MOUNTAIN is one of Roanoke's "sacred places," its image imprinted as vividly in the minds of all who have lived here as the mountain itself is on the landscape of the valley. Let's respect it as such.
Let's also exploit it as such.
For decades, talk has repeatedly swelled and subsided about what use the mountain should serve. Perhaps the years of indecision, of development proposals emerging and receding, have shown us that the mountain has its own, more enduring purpose:
It exists, an instantly recognizable symbol of home to star-struck residents and, in its largely natural state, an astonishingly unique refuge of green rising from, and rendering more distinctive, our urban landscape.
Now talk swells again as the Mill Mountain Development Committee begins work on a strategic plan for the 535-acre city park. But the talk - of a restaurant or an inn or a hot-air balloon ride or whatever - sounds strangely outdated.
When much of the valley was rolling farmland and forests, the city's tree-covered mountain was a tempting site for development - a place to build something for residents and visitors to do. Today, with development encroaching on every open space, the natural mountain grows increasingly attractive as an alternative to man-made entertainments.
What is there to do? Enjoy it.
Time, as Roanoke City Councilman Jim Trout observes, has been kind to Mill Mountain. The many needs it once might have filled have been met in other ways.
Restaurants? The valley has an abundance. Site for a railroad museum (proposed by city planners in the 1960s)? The Virginia Museum of Transportation downtown is ideally located.
Something - anything - to lure tourists into the Roanoke Valley? Virginia's Explore Park just off the Blue Ridge Parkway is a living-history museum, which soon will feature a restaurant for dining. Roanoke's City Market area is a delightful draw downtown.
One as-yet unmet need in the Roanoke Valley, on the other hand, is a greenways system, including nature trails for hiking and biking that would link the valley's parts and offer miles of recreation. Mill Mountain can - and should - be the jewel of this system.
A greenway, for connecting the City Market with Mill Mountain Park, is planned. Appropriate development on the mountain itself would be improved trails. On top of which, the view of the mountain is as important as the view from it.
What of the Mill Mountain Zoo, which recently won permission to expand its operation by 1.5 acres?
A superb zoo for its size, it has been a friend to Mill Mountain. But it cannot expect to continue to grow there forever. The city's goal must be to preserve the mountain. The burden should rest with the zoo to offer convincing evidence that future plans would not conflict with that goal.
So why do we call for "exploiting" the mountain? Because, not only would it serve the Fishburn family's intent, in giving the mountain to the city, to preserve it as a wild, green place, it also might maximize the mountain's potential as an economic-development asset.
Other cities have developed hillsides. How many have green mountains in their middle?
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB