Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991 TAG: 9102050169
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Town Council may limit growth on the inside, but builders won't stop building around the central residential district, he says.
"I am one of the people living in a single-family house, raising two children, that this zoning is trying to protect," Dunay said of proposed zoning changes to the so-called CRD.
He predicts that families like his would be chased out of downtown Blacksburg by traffic and noise that spill over into their neighborhoods, and would leave behind a big hole.
For the same reasons, new families probably wouldn't move in, Dunay said, and the district would eventually wither under the curtailed development proposed.
But even if council leaves the zoning as it is, families may abandon downtown anyhow, edged out by an increasing number of apartment projects and offices right next door or across the street.
That very scenario is what started the Town Council thinking about curbing growth in the CRD in the first place.
The question of how to grow and hang on to that small-town, homey feeling has nagged town officials for more than five years.
The council, at last, has drafted a 40-page zoning ordinance and sent it to the Planning Commission. A public hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight. at town hall.
Public opinion is scattered all across the board, and it appears the plan will be stalled once again. Most people agree that something needs to be done, but everyone has something he or she doesn't like about the proposal.
"It's past the point of saving this area for single family," said Planning Director Bill West.
The commission will probably do its own tinkering before handing it back to the council, he said.
"It needs to be studied some more. I tell you, I don't know what it will look like, but I don't think it'll look the same as what the council gave them," West said.
The most blatant - and controversial - change the new ordinance would make in the downtown is to reduce or eliminate multifamily development.
Now, property owners have the right to build apartments or condominiums with up to 19 units per acre anywhere in the district.
Under the draft plan, no new apartment buildings would be allowed in two sections of the district, and a special-use permit would be required to build them in the third section.
Further, the number of units allowed - either duplexes or single-family - would be limited to 10 per acre.
Some property owners say the change would cheat them out of a chance to develop their land and, therefore, would devalue their property.
Bob Johnson of HCMF Real Estate and Housing Management Corp. said several of his clients paid high prices for property in the area based on their potential for development.
If the changes go through, "We've collectively lost our shirts," he said.
To protect their investment, his clients could "start construction on every one of our pieces of property," before the rezoning, Johnson said.
One property owner has filed development plans that would beat the deadline. Don Irons has declined to comment on his plans to build student apartments next to the historic Thomas-Conner house on Draper Road. He has owned the property for about 13 years and submitted his plans in November.
So far, the town's planning staff has not received other projects for the district, although they've had plenty of phone calls and inquiries.
No one knows how the proposed rezoning would affect land values. But some council members, citing other towns and cities that have installed tough preservation laws in their downtowns, say land values actually might go up.
Town Attorney Richard Kaufman said that, legally, Town Council can rezone land to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.
A staff study showed that continued growth downtown would overwhelm the narrow streets and old sanitary and storm-water sewer pipes.
The study, completed last fall, in large part prompted council to nail down specific regulations for a new residential district after years of talk.
That's when the debate really got going.
Some residents think the restrictions go too far. Some don't want new apartments built, but also don't want their property devalued.
Some property owners are concerned that if existing multifamily buildings are destroyed by fire, for example, they might not be allowed to rebuild.
Others think reduced land value will lead to rundown houses and eyesores.
Members of the Old Residential Neighborhood Association, such as Niki Nicholas, say that dividing the district into three "little chunks," will dilute the lobbying power of the residents.
"We are the downtown residential district," said Nicholas. "We have common reasons why we live downtown. Whether or not we're all touching each other doesn't matter."
She also opposes permitting bed-and-breakfasts in the district by special-use permits because the community could lose control over who operates the hotels, she said. Special-use permits follow the property, not the applicant.
The association, in a memo to the town, said the changes "lack vision and cohesiveness," and that it "occurs too late in the lifetime of the neighborhood."
Even Mayor Roger Hedgepeth, who has helped coax the plan through hours of council meetings, is dissatisfied with it.
"I don't think this thing is ready to pass," Hedgepeth said. "I think it's, No. 1, too extreme, and, No. 2, doesn't do what we intended it to do."
In 1980, when the CRD zoning was adopted, growth was guided by an "in-fill" policy - filling in the holes of development. The idea was to provide housing close to downtown and to Tech, where a majority of Blacksburg residents work or go to school.
By 1985, it was clear that the plan had cracks. Student apartments were going up in the middle of neighborhoods of single-family homes; parking spaces were becoming scarce; and relations between students and long-time residents were growing hostile.
Now, the neighborhood group and others have blasted the council for apparently reversing its position by almost completely eliminating multifamily development.
"I guess the analogy is . . . if you find yourself driving down the wrong side of a highway, what do you do?" Councilman Michael Chandler said.
Chandler, who headed the council's subcommittee on the CRD, said he's happy with the proposal as it's written - including the ban on multifamily in two-thirds of the district.
But Councilman Waldon Kerns, who has never liked the multifamily moratorium, said there's probably good cause to change the changes.
"I think we need that option, if they [property owners] want to change the use of their land," he said.
Hedgepeth recently suggested hiring a consultant to refine the ordinance so that it allows for creative projects that might fit well in the CRD, such as garden apartments for married graduate students or senior citizens.
"I would hate to just come along in March and just vote on this because I'm tired of it," he said. But Hedgepeth hasn't been able to muster support for the idea.
So for now, it remains up to the town and its citizens to cook up a plan for the central residential district that everyone can swallow - and hopefully it won't be a doughnut.
Memo: correction