Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1994 TAG: 9401260394
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
By a 4-0 vote, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors rezoned 24.7 acres from agricultural to a planned mobile home park designation. Supervisor Nick Rush was at the meeting but missed the vote. Members Jim Moore and Joe Gorman were absent.
The existing Pine View and Twin Lakes trailer parks opened in the 1960s, before Montgomery had a zoning ordinance. They were exempted from latter-day zoning regulations as long as they didn't expand.
In order to increase the number of trailers from 65 to 117, the Ratcliffs needed the rezoning. They also won approval Monday of a special-use permit, which the supervisors, this time including Rush, approved 5-0.
The permit sets nine conditions governing the new combined park. They include requiring paved roads, state-approved entrances off Merrimac Road, connection to the public sewer system, buffers to neighbors, fire hydrants and playground equipment.
The supervisors' approval came despite requests from three neighbors that the Ratcliffs be required to erect a fence to keep park residents from walking across their property. The Planning Commission heard earlier this month that bushes and trees could do much the same thing and be far less unsightly.
The Ratcliffs, who have owned the parks since November 1990 and live there, will go forward with parts of the upgrade this year. But they won't pave the roads and take other major finishing steps until the county Public Service Authority completes a $1.3 million sewer line to the Merrimac Road area.
That project, which will provide sewer service to an estimated 750 people, is awaiting approval of a $584,000 federal loan and grant package, said Public Service Authority Director Gary Gibson.
The federal government already has approved a $700,000 grant for the project.
The PSA should hear about the second loan and grant package within a few months, Gibson said. If approved, the project could be completed in about a year, he said.
In other business Monday, the Board of Supervisors:
Heard an update from board Chairman Larry Linkous on the work of a special committee of county and school officials to find a way to share a purchasing agent. The committee set to work last summer as a result of the Board of Supervisors desire to merge the finance departments of the county and the school system. Though that ultimate goal is still off in the future, the supervisors Monday gave Linkous the OK to bring a draft agreement on the purchasing arrangement back to them for approval.
County Attorney Roy Thorpe said such a written agreement is not required legally, but would be helpful in a practical sense if both the supervisors and School Board approved it.
Heard from County Administrator Betty Thomas that her 1994-95 budget proposal will be delayed. Originally set for Feb. 8, Thomas now will present the budget to the supervisors and the public on Feb. 14. The Montgomery School Board is scheduled to adopt its budget proposal on Thursday and then forward it to Thomas and Fiscal Management Director Jeff Lundsford.
Discussed amending an agreement governing the Elliston-Lafayette Industrial Park that would allow the county to upgrade a garbage collection area. The site off U.S. 460 would be fenced, staffed and include containers for recyclables, similar to a current garbage drop-off site near Prices Fork.
``This is a step toward putting recycling out in that end of the county,'' said Randall Bowling, director of public facilities.
But Supervisor Joe Stewart, who represents southwestern Montgomery County, said the expanded drop-off site will be more unsightly. A majority of the board disagreed with him, however.
The matter will come up again after county officials contact the businesses in the industrial park.
Voted to spend: $1,062 so the Christiansburg Rescue Squad can repair an ambulance damaged Dec. 20 in a wreck on a snowy Peppers Ferry Road; $16,422 to cover the registrar's and electoral board's costs of holding the June Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race; and up to $30,000 during the next year for double-liner material for the county landfill.
by CNB