NEIGHBORS PROTEST TREE-CUTTING FOR SCHOOL ENTRANCE

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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993                   TAG: 9301230068
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
NEIGHBORS PROTEST TREE-CUTTING FOR SCHOOL ENTRANCE
The pulse of a college town: some trees, a road, a river of dissent.
Plans for a bus entrance to a new Blacksburg elementary school and for cutting a 100-year-old stand of trees to make way for the school's construction are drawing fire from residents living near the Prices Fork Road site.
Five residents have written an "open letter" to the Montgomery County School Board and School Superintendent Harold Dodge. The letter outlines their concerns about the access road, the trees and the lack of citizen participation in the planning of the school.
The letter's authors - Susan Bright, Richard Hirsh, Mary Holliman, Joan Moore and David Smith - are seeking the signatures of others in the Hethwood, Haymarket Square and Stroubles Mill neighborhoods.
Bright, an assistant manager for user services at the Virginia Tech computing center, stressed that she and the others are not opposed to the school itself.
They object to the location of the bus access road in their residential neighborhood out of concern for the safety of children walking to school. They oppose cutting the trees because they believe they should be used as an outdoor laboratory to teach pupils about the natural world.
Following a community meeting to discuss the school site in November, Haymarket Square Homeowners Association, which represents 134 residents, wrote to county and town officials expressing similar concerns, Bright said. The association never received a reply, she said.
Plans call for the school's car entrance to connect with Prices Fork Road. But Dodge rejects outright residents' proposal for a bus road off of Prices Fork Road to the west of the car entrance.
About half the enrollment, 269 children, will come from Hethwood and other neighborhoods around the school. Bringing buses from Hethwood Boulevard into the school from Prices Fork Road would require them to make two left turns across traffic on Prices Fork, Dodge said.
It's safer to keep auto and bus traffic separate, Dodge said. The proposed bus access from residential Cambridge Road in the Haymarket Square development is the safest way to get buses to the school grounds, he said.
Bright said that while many of the pupils come from the Hethwood area now, residential growth may make the Prices Fork entrance the most desirable in the future.
The residents see the 1.9-acre stand of trees, some of which are 100 years old, as providing the new school with a unique opportunity for an outdoor laboratory, letter-author Smith said. He is associate dean for Virginia Tech's School of Forestry and lives in Haymarket Square right across from the threatened trees.
Plans put a corner of the school squarely in the middle of the tree stand. Efforts will be made to save as many trees as possible, but a consultant hired by the school system has found that many of them are diseased, Dodge said.
Smith says the trees, which stand on a knoll, were not evaluated by the school system's consultant as a possible outdoor laboratory. He has offered to tour the site with Dodge and the School Board to show them the site's potential. "I truly believe the School Board and the superintendent don't understand the ecological value of this," Smith said. "Their mind is closed on it."
Smith wants the School Board to move the school's location 60 feet west and 60 feet north, which he said would allow about 80 percent of the trees to be preserved while costing a few parking spaces and some minor design changes in the school. "It would be a good compromise," he said.
Except for the cutting of a few fence posts, the tree stand has been relatively undisturbed, Smith said. There are 15 to 20 native tree and shrub species, many wildflowers, a large colony of squirrels and nesting sites for numerous migratory and song birds.
Also present are some dead and downed trees that provide habitat for fungi, plants and animals. If some standing trees are diseased or dead and threaten safety, they should be cut or uprooted and left on the ground, Smith said.
Smith said he believes the trees could be developed as a laboratory with trails and accompanying classroom literature for less than it will cost to remove them. He would be willing to help develop the outdoor lab and said a number of Tech students also would be willing to help. "All I want is them to consider it. Right now it's not even being considered."
Dodge said Thursday night that Larry Schoff, the school administration's supervisor for the building project, and the school system's forestry consultant will take another look at the trees. But he has to have room to build a playground for the school, he said.
One factor complicating the county's ability to relocate the school are plans by the town of Blacksburg to locate parkland and playing fields next to the school.
Bright, Smith and others plan to attend Tuesday night's Town Council meeting where Dodge will be on the agenda.
Residents will present their letter to Dodge and the School Board Tuesday morning, Bright said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB