Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991 TAG: 9104090211
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
A lot, say some citizens, and they want to see an amendment concerning open-space preservation stay in the draft of the town's Comprehensive Plan.
"Once a new housing project has been built and open land is gone, it's too late to think about what a nice town Blacksburg used to be," said resident Bet Fontaine.
Fontaine and other citizens plan to lobby Town Council at tonight's public hearing to keep the changes in the draft. The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 at town hall.
The changes, as suggested by council member Michael Chandler earlier this year, include reducing the density of residential growth in several areas on the land-use map.
Areas along Prices Fork Road would change from medium density to agricultural, and the Central Residential District would change from medium to low density. Chandler also had suggested changing the land bounded by North Main Street and Givens Lane from low density to agricultural but has dropped that idea.
Town planner Carol Bousquet stressed Monday that the entire plan and all suggestions are open for discussion.
A citizens task force that helped develop the plan in 1988 looked at the changes last month and recommended they be adopted "with the understanding they are meant to regulate rather than stifle growth," according to a staff memo.
But the Planning Commission views the additions as major changes that should be considered separately and perhaps added later. It recommended last week that the Comprehensive Plan be adopted without Chandler's changes.
"The thing that bothered me about it is that it provides for a lot more rigid control" without specific regulation, said commissioner Joe Jones. "The gaps will be filled in later."
Ed Wesley, an outspoken advocate of open space and president of the New River Valley Environmental Coalition, said the amendment is necessary.
Otherwise, he said, the plan indicates that existing open space is "on hold" until it is developed, Wesley said. "That's not really an open-space plan."
Wesley and others have questioned whether Jones, a real estate agent, possibly had a conflict of interest in voting against the changes.
Jones said he is the agent for a 100-acre tract along North Main Street, in the area suggested for agricultural use.
But he denied that his vote constituted a conflict, based on advice from the town attorney when a similar situation arose earlier.
Jones said he needn't abstain from voting when the issue concerns wide-reaching policy rather than a particular piece of property.
Council could take action tonight on the plan, which is updated every five years. It was supposed to have been adopted last year, Bousquet said.
She said the town staff has begun preliminary research on developing an open-space plan.
by CNB