Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990 TAG: 9003062126
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yet without consolidation, the Roanoke Valley to see plenty of change, not all of it good, in the past few years. Another question, equally legitimate but raised less often, is: What changes will not consolidating bring about?
Sometimes, the changes wrought by not consolidating are manifest, as when duplicate and sometimes triplicate local-government facilities are built. In the not-too-distant past, Roanoke City built one civic center and Salem built another. More recently, Roanoke City built a new jail; Roanoke County built another.
In the not-too-distant future, it now appears, Roanokers will "enjoy" the convenience - and costs - of two fire stations to serve the industrializing U.S. 460 corridor on the east side of the valley. One is to be owned and operated by Roanoke City and its fully professional fire department; the other, in conjunction with Botetourt County, by Roanoke County and its part-volunteer department.
Other times, the changes wrought by not consolidating are more subtle. Take, for example, the industrialization of U.S.460 mentioned in the preceeding paragraph.
Roanoke City is developing the Centre for Industry and Technology just inside its border with the county, and county officials - some, anyway - would like to rezone an adjacent 54-acre tract for industrial use. The proposed rezoning has run into opposition, however, from the residential neighborhoods that adjoin it on three sides, and the county Planning Commission has recommended that the rezoning be denied.
Perhaps it will be denied, and the tract used instead for residential development. Or perhaps the rezoning ultimately will be approved, and would be approved even if there were a single local government for the valley.
This, however, is unmistakable: The county's effort to identify and rezone potential industrial sites, of which the proposed rezoning of the 54-acre tract is a part, is related directly to the fact that the county and the city are separate entities.
At a meeting last week, Roanoke City Manager Robert Herbert challenged other valley governments to show the extent of industrial and commercial development planned in the city for 1990-91. That attitude - and it is hardly unique to Herbert - suggests part of the problem: Where there should be cooperative compatibility, there is instead competitiveness.
But Herbert's point was not meaningless, and the deeper question is why it wasn't. Why should the county care? If people move to the county to live in residential subdivisions, including those adjacent to the land along 460, why should their local-government leaders be eager to woo industrial prospects?
The one-word answer is "taxes." Yes, the jobs provided by industrial and commercial development in the city can be filled as easily by county as city residents. But the revenue from taxes on the firms and factories doesn't flow into the treasuries of both localities; it goes to the locality where the firms and factories are.
Taxing residential property is a net loser; the cost of providing services - especially schools - is higher than the tax revenue obtained. Taxing commercial and industrial property is a net gainer. That helps explain how the city has been able over recent years to make steady cuts in its real-estate tax rate, to the current $1.25 per $100 of assessed value, while the county's rate has been climbing to $1.15, within shouting distance of the city's.
No wonder, then, that county officials want to raise their non-residential tax base from the existing 16 percent to 25 percent of the total - still lower than the percentage in the city, but closer.
One way to ease the fiscal burden of having a tax base that's 84 percent residential is to consolidate with the city. That way, the tax benefits of non-residential development in the valley could be more evenly spread.
The only other way is to succeed at what the county is trying to do: turn more and more land, previously targeted for agricultural and residential use, into industrial sites.
by CNB