Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 4, 1993 TAG: 9309290308
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not just in Roanoke County but in most any locality, the routine pretty much is for developers to outline their plans, the local government to issue the required permits, and the earth-movers to show up and start moving earth.
All of this takes time and money, to be sure, and there is the occasional roadblock thrown up by unhappy neighbors when an unpopular rezoning is involved. But the bureaucratic machinery works fairly smoothly to clear the way for growth. The presumption is that growth is progress, growth is profitable, growth is good.
And it is, given the proper controls.
One case in which unusual caution and oversight are called for is when an extraordinary natural resource or public economic-development asset would be affected by a developer's plans. Such is the case with the Blue Ridge Parkway and the subdivision proposals that would affect its viewshed.
This project points to the need for approaching growth with careful consideration of where development will take a community. How will today's decisions affect what the place will be 20 years from now? What will it look like? What will it be like to live in?
While localities don't prosper by discouraging growth, they do need some ability to shape it. Roanoke County, like most urbanized areas, has this ability in the form of a zoning ordinance and comprehensive plan. These exist to protect community interests when they conflict with private interests - and there is a community interest in any matter that will have a noticeable impact on the parkway.
What has grabbed the county's attention in this case is the realization that the outcome may have an irrevocable impact on the integrity of the parkway, a historic and scenic asset of priceless value to the entire region.
The parkway and its sweeping mountain views are a defining part of the geography that creates the valley's charming physical character, its populous center an urban inlay cut into the gently mountainous countryside. Chip away too much at this setting, and the jeweled inlay becomes just another mass of urban sprawl.
Thus, the negotiations to try to keep suburbia off the particular pastureland known as the "bowl and the knoll," a tiny piece in the county's overall development, but one of 11 areas along the parkway in Roanoke County identified as critical views.
County supervisors and staff are to be commended for recognizing the importance of the issue. As supervisors Chairman Fuzzy Minnix put it, "We can't have the parkway become just another street through just another town."
Beyond this one dispute, though, there should be a growing awareness among local officials that developable land is a finite resource, and must be managed as such. To fashion the community it wants to be 20 years from now, the county must rethink the relationship between government and developers. County officials, with the demonstrated support of citizens, must start looking more critically at how limited assets will be used.
by CNB