MONTGOMERY ABANDONS PLAN FOR LAND SWAP FOR RIGHT-OF-WAY

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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 11, 1993                   TAG: 9302110168
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
MONTGOMERY ABANDONS PLAN FOR LAND SWAP FOR RIGHT-OF-WAY
Plans for a land swap to obtain a right-of-way for a bus access road to a new Blacksburg elementary school have been abandoned by the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.
The supervisors have canceled a public hearing scheduled for Feb. 22 on the proposed swap.
The swap would have given Michael Kipps a 50-foot strip of land along the western edge of the school property. In return the county was seeking a right-of-way through Kipps property for a bus driveway from Cambridge Road in the Haymarket Square subdivision into the back of the school property.
The automobile entrance for the new school, which will be built on land just west of the Food Lion near Hethwood, will be located on Prices Fork Road. The School Board wants a separate bus entrance for safety reasons.
Now the county apparently will seek to buy the land needed for the bus entrance. Stung the last time the county condemned property for a road in the Nellies Cave community, it is unlikely the board would vote to condemn the land.
The supervisors changed their minds about the land swap late in Monday night's board meeting. Earlier in the night, the Blacksburg Town Council had met with the board and argued against the proposed swap.
Blacksburg Mayor Roger Hedgepeth told the supervisors that the roadway the swap would give Kipps would pose a safety hazard to a recreational park that the town was planning to build west of the school building.
The loss of the 50-foot strip of land would prevent the construction of athletic fields the council had planned and jeopardize financial support for the construction of the fields from a local soccer organization, the supervisors were told.
While some residents of the Hethwood subdivisions have objected to locating a bus access road in their community at all, Hedgepeth said the town was not opposed to the bus road.
After hearing from Town Council, the supervisors talked over the swap and decided it posed too many problems for the town's proposed park, Supervisor Henry Jablonski said.
Board Chairman Ira Long said he and his fellow supervisors had not anticipated the problems the proposed land swap had created.
"When we got into this thing, we thought it would be clear sailing."
The supervisors will meet Monday night with the Town Council at the courthouse to decide what steps to take now regarding the bus-access road.
One of the reasons the supervisors had proposed the swap was that taking the narrow strip of land for the bus access road would have deprived Kipps of a way into the northern side of his property. The School Board wanted traffic on the bus road limited to buses.
But Jablonski suggested that it also might be possible to allow access to the Kipps property off the bus access road. The Kipps property is farmland and is being taken into the county's agricultural tax district. Traffic into the property would not be heavy if it remains farmland, he said.
The Kipps land is currently under lease to county Supervisor Larry Linkous, who also has been granted the opportunity to buy the property should Kipps decide to sell it. Linkous has abstained from his board's discussions about the property.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB