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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 15, 1993                   TAG: 9309150235
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Southwest Bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

RURAL RETREAT STUDIES GROWTH

Rural Retreat will hire a consultant to study the area of Wythe County it wants to annex before the county decides whether to agree to a friendly annexation.

Town Manager Raymond Matney met with the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Both sides agreed to the study because population and land-value figures have changed since the most recent data was completed.

One of the changes is a new industry, the Klockner plant located in the Rural Retreat industrial park.

The town is seeking to triple its size and add about 1,000 people to its population.

It was estimated that the loss of revenue to the county would be $22,000 annually, but the study probably will change that figure.

Rural Retreat serves about 95 percent of the acreage it seeks with water and about 75 percent with sewer.

The county has no zoning ordinance; the town is arguing that its ordinance could protect the area around the industrial park and Interstate 81 exit from haphazard development.

by CNB