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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 18, 1993                   TAG: 9403100004
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A NEW LAW FOR OLD NEIGHBORHOODS

IS THERE any hope that a local government, neighborhood residents and developers can work together to control the impact of new development on existing neighborhoods? There's more than hope. There's evidence.

The city of Roanoke, helped by Republican state Sen. Brandon Bell, won from the 1993 General Assembly the authority to create design-overlay districts for older neighborhoods.

Sounds boring? Well, behind the bureaucratic language is a significant empowering of the city and its residents for maintaining control over how their neighborhoods will look.

Until the new grant of authority, Roanoke, like other Virginia localities, could regulate architectural design only in historic districts. But not every older Roanoke neighborhood is in a historic district. Lacking such designation, and lacking also the covenants that control design in more recent suburban developments, these areas - communities such as Gilmer, Melrose and Morningside - had no means to protect their distinctive architectural characters.

Those distinctive styles were being lost amid new construction that in some cases was, well, cheap. Cheap in both senses of the word: inexpensive, and of poor design and quality. City planners and neighborhood leaders did not believe the former necessitates the latter.

These areas, struggling to revitalize themselves, were finally seeing new construction. But much of it was so ugly that it was likely to repel rather than attract more investment. Residents weren't happy, the city wasn't happy, and homebuilders recognized a need for standards. They did not want to extend the more rigorous design controls of a historic district, but they realized lousy construction could only hurt property values and limit future investment potential.

So the three groups worked together to win a change in the city's charter, giving Roanoke a valuable tool to be used in the renewal of designated rehabilitation districts. City officials credit neighborhood activists such as Florine Thornhill, president of the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization, with impressing on state legislators the need for this local control. The absence of opposition from homebuilders made it a proposition that could hardly be defeated.

The city has yet to use the tool it has been given. Planners are still working on updating Roanoke's comprehensive plan, which will designate the areas to be protected by the design-overlay district. The design guidelines that builders will have to follow are still being written. After that work is complete, an ordinance will have to be drafted, public hearings will have to be held, and City Council will have to vote on and pass the measure before the design district is put into effect.

It's too early to know how successful the city will be in fostering well-designed, compatible growth in its inner-city neighborhoods. But at least it has the opportunity.

by CNB