
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992                   TAG: 9203190414
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: N5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE                                LENGTH: Medium

FOOD LION WINS, DESPITE OPPOSITION

Wendi Wingo would have preferred leaving Virginia Brubaker's farm at Laymantown Road and U.S. 460 alone, rather than vote to turn it into a Food Lion store and parking lot, she said after Monday's Botetourt County Board of Supervisors meeting here.

But Wingo, the board's chairman, said she had to think of the good of the county. A major grocery store like Food Lion could bring Botetourt an additional $100,000 in tax revenues a year. "It wasn't an easy decision by any means," she said.

Wingo said she had received an equal number of comments and telephone calls from people wanting the store and opponents. So, she said it would have been wrong to allow her personal feelings about developing the Brubaker farm in Blue Ridge to interfere with her decision, as a supervisor, to support the project.

"If it was just me, I would have said leave it farm. But as a board member, you have to look at all the facts no matter how much it hurts."

Still, opponents of the Food Lion said Monday that the supervisors were acting prematurely by approving the project before their concerns are adequately addressed.

"We feel like this action is putting the cart before the horse," said Larry Eanes, one of the leaders of a group of residents who live near the Brubaker farm and oppose the Food Lion.

Eanes and others worry that the grocery store will cause traffic tie-ups, detract from the beauty of the community and create potential septic problems.

Monday, about 60 people - mostly from the Rainbow Forest, Knollwood and Lake Forest subdivisions - turned out against the Food Lion plan and asked the board to at least delay a decision on the project until their questions can be better answered.

Representatives for Food Lion have assured that the grocery store would not pose any of the problems discussed. To ease traffic congestion, they agreed to follow any recommendations, at the company's expense, made by the state Department of Transportation.

They also said they will be required to meet health department standards for the store's septic system and to plant trees on the 13-acre site to screen it from surrounding residences.

Some opponents whose neighborhoods would look down on the store, however, argued that the proposed landscaping would do little to hide the site from their hilltop views.

But Wingo said the assurances were enough to approve Brubaker's rezoning request to allow the Food Lion. The five supervisors passed the measure unanimously.

by CNB