ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120071
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
Leaders from Montgomery County and Christiansburg have approved an agreement that will allow the county to provide water and sewer to a large housing development on Price Mountain.
In exchange, the deal allows Christiansburg to bring a portion of the Christiansburg Industrial Park that is in the county into the town limits.
The boundary change for 32 acres in the industrial park near Interstate 81 was necessary for better marketing of the park, officials said.
Supervisor Jim Moore was the only official to vote against the agreement after Town Council and the Board of Supervisors held a joint public hearing Monday.
"I'm not going to belabor this, but I am going to vote 'no,''' Moore said. "My three-word speech would be: 'annexation, annexation, annexation.'''
A 1988 annexation agreement that gave Christiansburg land in the New River Valley Mall and Marketplace shopping center area prohibits the town from further annexations until 2003. Because of this, the county and the town must obtain the approval of a circuit judge for Monday's deal.
Moore said Tuesday that he thinks growth is happening too fast and the county is rapidly losing land to Christiansburg.
"It's getting a little old hat. It's all legal," Moore said. "[Former Town Manager] John Lemley used to brag that Christiansburg was the fastest-growing town in the state. And he's right. I just think we've been growing too fast. And some people think that's great. I'm not anti-growth, but I think there's a logical pace."
Town Manager Lance Terpenny said, "I guess he doesn't realize they came to us."
When the county initiated the request for utility services, the town saw the opportunity to take care of the boundary change at the same time, Terpenny said.
"It's not an annexation if it's a friendly agreement, which it was," Terpenny said. "The rest of the board saw the wisdom in that. It wasn't anything we forced on them."
Mayor Harold Linkous described the boundary change at the public hearing: "It will not be detrimental to the county, but it will make the sale of the Christiansburg Industrial Park a little easier if all of it is included in the corporate limits." No one from the public spoke at the hearing.
This is not the first time the county and Christiansburg have struck an agreement to promote economic development by expanding the town's boundaries. In 1995, after months of negotiations, about 220 acres in the county were converted to the town to help development of the county's Falling Branch Industrial Park off Interstate 81 near Exit 118.
The land included 192 acres of the park and 30 acres behind the Marketplace shopping center off U.S. 460. Christiansburg gained tax revenue from the industrial park and the prime land behind the shopping center while agreeing to save the county money by building water and sewer lines to the industrial park. While the industrial park land was moved into the town limits, it continues to be owned by the county. The 30-acre parcel at the Marketplace is held by several owners.
Monday's agreement also means Christiansburg will allow the county Public Service Authority to cross the town's land to extend water and sewer lines to part of William H. Price's residential development on Price Mountain off Merrimac Road.
In July, Price won county approval to rezone 400 acres on Price Mountain for up to 324 homes and duplexes. But the project could not move forward until utilities were provided.
The county's Public Service Authority will also be allowed to hook those lines into Christiansburg's water and sewer treatment system.
In return, the town can build sewer lines across county land to serve development near Farmview Lane and the U.S. 460 bypass.
The agreement does not affect the unresolved issue of utility access to the part of Price's development that borders Blacksburg where the utilities must cross land in the town of Blacksburg.
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