Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409070064
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
They got what they wanted.
With curious town and county residents filtering through the room at the Blacksburg Community Center for six hours to look over various maps of the proposed development, project manager Wendell White and architect Bob Rogers found themselves answering a host of questions.
Among them:
How would traffic concerns be addressed?
Would the 300-acre development be closed, isolated from existing neighborhoods by sufficient buffer space or possibly fenced-in, or would it be open and available to hikers and bikers?
Could the developers guarantee to homeowners living on quiet cul-de-sacs such as Georgia, Murphy and Hoyt streets that their streets would never be extended into the complex and opened up to increased traffic?
What kind of price range is planned for the various types of patio homes, condominiums and town houses?
What entity - Blacksburg or Montgomery County - would provide services such as water and sewer, and police and fire protection?
How much of the population would actually be aged 55 or older?
Project backers had some answers, but more often than not they cited the preliminary nature of their plans as insufficient to allow them to answer many questions with certainty.
Instead White, a developer from Virginia Beach who is teaming with Floyd County partners Joe Farr and Joe Edone, repeatedly referred to the "intent" of the project's backers. Farr and Edone hold options on the land.
White said it was their intent to build a development consisting of seven "villages" housing independent, active retirees. Later, they might add facilities for assisted living or nursing care.
At least 70 percent of the development's populace would be aged 55 or older, and probably more than that. Few, if any, college students would be housed there. "This is not a community for children, really," White said.
Commercial development such as a restaurant, bank or convenience store along North Main and Harding Avenue, the main entrance points to the complex, would be relatively small and would cater specifically to the retirees, he said. No chance, he said, that the developers would try to bring in a Wal-Mart or the like.
Most of the homes would cost $100,000 or more, White said. Different parts of the complex would be connected by greenways, could have access by small vehicles like golf carts, and would be plugged into Blacksburg's Electronic Village. Most likely, water and sewer service would be provided by the town.
Developing the land of rolling hills and woods might take 15-20 years, and would most likely begin on the Blacksburg side of the property along North Main Street and proceed west, he said.
"There are many decisions and a long ways to go in terms of the actual layout of the project," said Rogers, an architect with Architectural Alternatives Inc. of Blacksburg, which designed the maps displayed at the meeting.
The developers decided to hold the public meeting Thursday of their own accord before proceeding with rezoning requests needed in both the town and the county so they could gauge citizen feeling and garner suggestions.
As the rezoning requests are filed this fall and winter, public hearings will take place, again giving citizens a forum for questions and criticisms. But better to work openly from the beginning, said Farr, than to "just spring it on them" when legally required.
But some residents seemed leery already of the project. Gloria Hoover, a school teacher who lives near where the complex would be built, said she and her husband have already begun looking for other homes just in case they feel their property value will drop when dozens of houses and apartments take over the view.
She worried that she did not know White, and, like others, wondered if the project backers might state one version of their intentions now but decide to go another way when the exact specifications come to light.
"This is going to be developed strictly, and there are going to be covenants ... " White said, maintaining that, "we want to be a good neighbor in the community."
by CNB