Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 15, 1994 TAG: 9409150049
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors approved a special-use permit and subdivision ordinance variance Monday to allow New River Media Group Inc. to erect a 120-foot FM radio tower on ridge-top land leased from the Virginia Tech Foundation Inc.
Though towers on mountains usually spark controversy in Montgomery, this one generated almost none.
An Aug. 22 public hearing brought out only New River Media employees, who not unexpectedly favored the tower. That night, the county Planning Commission recommended its approval by a 5-4 vote.
Monday, the supervisors OK'd the tower by two 6-0 votes with one member absent. The ordinance exemption will allow the Tech Foundation to subdivide a small parcel atop Price Mountain without having frontage on a public road.
The tower will help New River Media change the frequency and boost the power of rock music station WVVV (104.9 FM). WVVV's antenna is currently mounted on the side of the WJJJ (1260 AM) tower on North Franklin Street in Christiansburg. The FM replacement will stand on a spur below the main ridge, 11/2 miles west of the existing towers on Price Mountain. Those towers - a 4-year-old, 185-foot Contel Cellular tower; a 30-year-old, 93-foot Bell Atlantic communications tower; and two smaller, less visible ones - are atop the 2,400-foot ridge north of the New River Valley Mall.
New River Media officials say the new tower will be barely visible above the treetops and will not need to be lighted or colored.
The Richlands-based radio station group is studying rural sites in western Montgomery near Radford to build a replacement for the WJJJ tower and studio. After it's finished, the company plans to tear down the existing tower, located near the current Lowe's Home Center at 1600 North Franklin.
Also Monday:
At the request of the Lowe's chain, the Board of Supervisors amended its sign ordinance to allow huge retail stores to have larger exterior signs. The new rules still aren't ideal for Lowe's, but will do, said company official Mitch Franklin.
A new, larger Lowe's superstore is under construction off Peppers Ferry Road, adjacent to the recently opened Heironimus department store and Kmart.
Under the new rules, exterior signs on walls of more than 6,000 square feet may take up 5 percent of the area of the wall, or 300 square feet, whichever is smaller. The old rule limited such wall signs to a maximum of 200 square feet, which is more than Blacksburg's 100-square-foot limit but less than Christiansburg's allowance of up to 10 percent of wall area. Lowe's typically hangs 480 square feet of signage, split between three separate signs.
Montgomery adopted its sign ordinance in the late 1980s, before Christiansburg annexed the land that later became the New River Valley Mall. The mall and the swath of retail and fast-food restaurant development associated with the Market Place shopping center are governed by Christiansburg's sign ordinance.
The board accepted a $224,170 bid from Response Vehicles of Virginia for a new pumper/tanker truck for the Elliston Volunteer Fire Department. The firefighters have been waiting for a new pumper for a decade, and will chip in $22,479 toward the cost. The balance will come from the county's capital improvements fund.
In March, the board avoided a lawsuit by rejecting five bids after initially accepting the second-lowest bid from Response Vehicles. That company's competitors had protested that the county was tinkering with the bids by removing features to keep the price down.
The supervisors agreed to pay $30,000 for architectural and engineering studies to replace the Mid-County Park pool, which was severely damaged last winter by the failure of a valve. The cost of rebuilding remains undecided, but should be around $300,000; it will be covered by insurance.
by CNB