Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993 TAG: 9307280231
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Protection equates to `no build,' " said Hoyt Rath, assistant chief ranger.
Rath - speaking on behalf of Parkway Superintendent Gary Everhardt - said he considered a Roanoke County study of parkway vistas a first step toward "halting the bulldozers."
"The issue is to ensure that these open spaces and green areas . . . are preserved intact so that the entire Roanoke County portion of the parkway does not become another domino bowled over by development."
Rath's speech at a meeting of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors came only hours after the county's parkway vistas committee had issued a formal report.
Hollins District Supervisor Bob Johnson told Rath that he was concerned that the federal government would ask private property owners to give up development rights without getting something in return.
Johnson - himself a developer - asked if the National Park Service, which operates the parkway, would buy some private property adjacent to the scenic roadway.
Rath replied that was one possibility for protecting views along the 27-mile stretch of parkway that passes through the Roanoke Valley.
One developer, whose plans to subdivide a farm along the parkway in Southwest Roanoke County have been the focus of the parkway debate, said he would sell pastureland in critical vistas at cost - with no profit to his company.
"We have not been an obstacle to the process," said Len Boone, a partner in Boone, Boone & Loeb.
The company has a contract to buy a 235-acre farm that is bisected by the parkway near Cotton Hill Road. Boone declined to disclose a price for 35 acres situated in a bowl-shaped pasture and a grassy knoll that are highly visible from the parkway.
Some members of Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a nonprofit group that has considered a fund-raising campaign to buy the property, say that Boone has mentioned a price of around $300,000 for the bowl.
In its report, the county parkway study committee recommended limiting development on 11 areas within critical vistas to the lowest possible density - one house per 3 acres.
The committee also recommended placing additional restrictions - such as setbacks - on land within the 11 critical vistas.
In a concession to developers, the committee suggested giving landowners the right to apply for smaller lots if they agree to conform to design standards intended to blend houses into the rustic parkway scenery.
The parkway committee report comes at a time when the Board of Supervisors is moving ahead with plans to rezone some land near the parkway that does not fall into the 11 critical vistas.
County Administrator Elmer Hodge said Tuesday that he would prefer that the supervisors delay those plans to give the parkway committee time to propose a comprehensive parkway overlay zoning district.
"It would be my preference to take the entire package to the board at one time," Hodge said.
Such a package could include:
Recommendations for several thousand acres that are visible from the parkway, but do not fall within the critical vistas.
A long-term plan for acquiring "scenic easements" for some vistas or buying others outright.
So far, the parkway debate has focused on the property that Boone would like to develop in Southwest Roanoke County.
Tuesday, a developer with an option to buy the 165-acre Dowdy Farm in the Bonsack area said he wanted to build homes valued at $200,000 to $300,000 next to the parkway.
by CNB