Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991 TAG: 9103240108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This time, zoo leaders say, the decision could effectively be made for them, depending on how the city implements the strict new rules governing development on Mill Mountain.
Zoo director Beth Poff says her tiny three-acre facility must expand to survive.
But the ambitious expansion plans announced last summer - which Poff now confesses were put together mostly for show - run afoul of the new rules that prohibit any development that could be seen from neighborhoods or require a substantial increase in parking.
Trying to find a way to expand on the mountaintop and stay within the new rules, the zoo has scrapped its long-range plans for an African exhibit tied to Roanoke's sister city of Kisumu, Kenya. Under that plan, the zoo would have sprawled down the side of the mountain toward Garden City.
And the zoo has sliced its short-range plans for an Asian exhibit tied to Roanoke's other sister city of Wonju, South Korea, down to about a third the original size.
Sometime this spring, the zoo hopes to present a revised plan expanding the facility to seven acres to the city committee charged with reviewing any proposed development on the mountain.
Roanoke landscape architect David Hill, who has been drawing up the zoo's plans, is hopeful the revised expansion will pass muster - although he admits no one is sure what to expect because the review committee hasn't been appointed yet and this will be the first test of the new rules.
But if the zoo finds it can't expand on the mountaintop, Poff says, the zoo will have to do some soul-searching - and perhaps some site-searching, too.
"Here's that question again: Can the zoo expand on the top of Mill Mountain?" Poff says. "This is the third time through. . . . To some extent, we're almost back to where we started from." Wants answer by summer
The zoo started talking expansion in 1984 for the same reasons it is now.
If Mill Mountain is to gain its long-sought accreditation by the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, the zoo has to expand its facility and increase its funding base, Poff says.
"The zoo can't stay the way it is," Poff says. "We're outdated."
Its showcase animal, Ruby the tiger, is still held in a corncrib. A haphazard collection of other animals, from an orphaned beaver to an injured eagle, is housed in simple wood-and-wire cages at a time when zoos around the world are opting for fancy, naturalistic settings.
Mill Mountain Zoo also lives a hand-to-mouth existence on gate receipts and small contributions that come in chunks of $25 or $50 at a time. Unlike other non-profit groups in the Roanoke Valley such as some of the museums in Center in the Square, the zoo receives no city or state funding. Nor is it the beneficiary of big donations. Poff says even corporate contributions to the zoo usually run in the hundreds, not thousands, of dollars.
In 1984, the zoo's initial expansion talk excited then-City Manager Bern Ewert. In short order, the city hired a big-name Seattle zoo consultant; plans were drawn up for a major zoo of exotic animals along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Roanoke County; Ewert quit his job to head a newly formed foundation to pull the project off.
But the "Blue Ridge Zoo" evolved into the Explore Park, with emphasis on re-creating American history and plans for a collection of only North American animals.
Feeling left out, Mill Mountain Zoo took up the question of its future again in 1988. Zoo directors quietly began to talk about how Mill Mountain could carve a niche for itself by focusing on wildlife from Roanoke's two sister cities - part of a trend for small zoos to specialize, instead of trying to have one of every species.
But zoo directors were stunned in March 1990 to read in the newspaper that city officials - embarking on a major study of Mill Mountain - were talking about what to do with the mountaintop when the zoo left.
To emphasize that the zoo wanted to stay on the mountain, zoo leaders last summer rushed out a 20-year expansion plan that called for a 40-acre zoo - price tag undetermined - to recreate the Himalayas and the African lowlands.
They admit now the plan they presented with great hoopla last July was not quite as serious as it appeared then.
"This was a wish list," Hill says.
"We had to shake people up," says Lisa Reinard, an apprentice landscape architect who has worked with Hill.
But it was zoo backers who were shaken when City Council in December ratified an Alexandria consultant's report on how proposed development on the mountain should be judged.
"The criteria is tough," Poff says. "I'll be the first to admit that."
The consultant's report lists 10 mandatory criteria and 32 discretionary ones that any development on the mountain must be judged against. The toughest ones for any expansion the zoo would undertake: No construction on steep slopes. The 88 parking spaces can only be increased by 17 spaces. The tree line can't be broken.
"This plan can't be built," Hill says, thumping a drawing of the zoo's expansion plan from last summer. "We've really had to regroup."
Slashing the plan from 40 acres to seven acres should get around the prohibition of building on steep slopes, Hill says. He gingerly talks about getting around the parking problem by having visitors park somewhere off the mountain and ride a tram to the top. And he's using computer-generated images to show that a seven-acre zoo - still with no price tag attached - won't break the tree line.
Meanwhile, the zoo is pressing City Manager Bob Herbert to appoint the review committee quickly so the zoo can find out soon what its future will be. But city officials say they're so busy dealing with other issues such as stock car racing at Victory Stadium that it could be May before the committee is empaneled.
"For the last few years, we've ridden this question to death," Poff says. "Are we staying or going? Are we staying or going? I'd like to go into summer knowing that answer."
\ Looking for leadership
Zoo backers worry because some of the new regulations about the mountain leave a lot of room for interpretation. What exactly constitutes construction? Is an open animal pen considered construction? Is a nature trail considered construction? Since there's no committee yet, there's no way to know.
"It really lies in the hands of those who interpret this document," Hill says, holding up the list of criteria. "Some of this is definitely political. If the people in Roanoke want the zoo to stay up there, they've got to let council know."
Gary Fenton, the city's parks and recreation chief, oversees the mountain and will shepherd the review committee. "I'm sure it's got a chance," he says of the zoo's revised plan.
Still, he says, "it's hard. The criteria were set there to make it tough. That's what the people said they wanted. Frankly, I was surprised, but most people said whatever you do, consider the mountain first" - and any development second.
Fenton says he's not sure whether the city even has a formal policy on whether it wants the zoo to stay on the mountain. "I wouldn't dodge your question except I don't know," he says. "Personally, I think the zoo is an asset."
But there's a more difficult question that will still confront the zoo even if the scaled-down expansion is approved: Where will the zoo get the money to build it? After all, this is the same zoo that has been struggling since last summer to build a modest pool for its beaver.
If the city approves the expansion, Poff says, the zoo plans to hire a professional fund-raiser to determine what the prospects are for raising the money. That may sound backwards, she says, but the feeling was potential contributors needed to see specifically what the zoo wanted to do - and what legally it could do - before commiting themselves.
It's hard to talk companies into donating to the zoo, Poff says, when the first question they always ask is: Are you staying?
She's also hoping the zoo's new relationship with Explore - they're going together to breed some endangered species - will help lure big contributors who have traditionally paid the zoo little heed, and even less money.
"People say, `Why do you need two zoos?' I wish people would get off that" because the two projects are so different, Poff says. "We're hoping people who give a lot of money to Explore will see we're not competing and are working together, and maybe some hesitation in their minds will be settled that way."
However, what the zoo needs most of all, Poff says, is someone influential to champion its cause. Zoo attendance and family memberships inch up each year, Poff says. But except for the flurry of interest that generated Explore in the mid-1980s, there's never been much of a "zoo culture" in Roanoke, at least among the business and political elite.
"Eventually, someone is going to have to step forward with a little leadership," she says. "`I hate to think I'm beating a dead horse, but I really think citizens want a nice zoo on the mountain."
The next few months could start to answer that question.
by CNB