Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 30, 1993 TAG: 9307300259
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Inside Addison Aerospace Magnet School, people were more quietly disturbed at the Virginia Department of Transportation's hearing on plans to widen Wells Avenue in Roanoke's historic Gainsboro neighborhood.
It was a newfangled kind of public hearing. No mass assembly, no speeches at all. Just a lot of maps, a videotape on street plans, and government workers in classrooms taking written statements or tape-recording what people said about the road that runs right by the Hotel Roanoke.
Amid the couple dozen engineers, planners, consultants and media handlers ready to answer questions in the hallway, the citizens of Roanoke had this to say about the $4.5 million Wells project, one of two four-lane traffic loops planned for the old black neighborhood to smooth traffic congestion forecast for 2010:
Jim Olin, Roanoke's congressman until he retired this year and a man who's said before that the city needs a wider circle of traffic loops than the close-together ones envisioned for Gainsboro: "You're going to have a gosh-awful amount of traffic going back and forth on this road," he said, looking at a map of Wells. "In my gut, I don't feel this is going to be a very good thing to do. The people in Gainsboro have been stepped on enough."
Dr. Walter Claytor, Gainsboro dentist: "It's just improper planning and execution." When the city began demolishing Gainsboro property 20 years ago, promising to revitalize, he was among those pleading for a long-term traffic plan, one beyond 2010. "Our vision at the time, they couldn't see it. . . . And we were right." Gainsboro's once-vital commercial district is nearly all gone.
Trudy Parker, whose antiques store on Wells Avenue would be torn down: "It's awful."
Evelyn Bethel, president of the Historic Gainsboro Preservation District and the road's leading opponent, accompanied by lawyers from the Beveridge & Diamond law firm in Washington: She's still against it.
And the lawyers? "They're here, exploring and investigating." They had nothing to say.
Will Bethel's organization and its allies, the NAACP and the People's Voters League, sue to stop the roads? Bethel said, "I don't know." She said the lawyers would be back soon.
Bethel also came with more than 300 signatures against the roads.
State transportation officials said in the videotape that the Wells project would affect 20 parcels of property by easement or right of way. It would displace Trudy's Antiques and another business, eight commercial buildings, one resident and two homes.
The city's hustled since last year to develop elaborate plans for Wells Avenue. The street is being touted as an entryway from Interstate 581 to the Hotel Roanoke, now under renovation, and its proposed conference center.
Roads and demolition in Gainsboro have reopened resentment from a quarter-century of decline there. Urban renewal brought some new houses and a few industries, but scores of homes, churches and other landmarks are gone.
The city, however, won the approval of some nonprofit organizations based in Gainsboro. They broke away from Bethel's coalition and are aiding the city's plans.
Three hours into the state's four-hour hearing, 36 people had signed in. About 18 had left written or recorded comments.
"They didn't want a mass of people over here walking to the microphone," Radford University Professor Reginald Shareef, a Roanoker, said out in the hallway. "There's so much anger over here, it would have been really hot."
The Wells Avenue project has hurdles to cross: A city Planning Commission review of design plans Wednesday afternoon, a City Council review Aug. 9 and a board meeting of the state Department of Transportation set for Aug. 19. If all goes smoothly, construction of it, too, could begin in a year.
by CNB