Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404270074
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And the opponents, led by Robert Bratton, came ready with a videotape of the trucks and noise emanating from the Hollybrook Sawdust & Mulch Inc. plant on Fire Tower Road, off U.S. 11 near Radford. They also presented a 116-signature petition.
Narrated by Bratton's grandson, Robert Kenley, the video was designed to show the supervisors "what we have to live with daily."
"Certain days you walk outside, you can't hardly breathe because of the distinct, sharp odor of certain trees," Kenley said. Excavation on the site also threatens a family cemetery, he said.
The work and noise start early in the morning, Bratton noted. "I am 70 years old and I haven't had a rested day in 12 years because of that darn mulch," he said.
But Radford lawyer Kendall O. Clay, who represented owner J.E. Bolt, said the rezoning of 12 acres from agricultural to industrial would allow the business to both expand and move its retail operations.
The relocation would provide safer access for retail customers in pickup trucks, away from the entrance Hollybrook currently shares with tractor-trailers and logging trucks at the adjacent Turman Lumber Co.
The Board of Supervisors last year rejected a similar rezoning request from Turman Lumber after complaints from neighbors.
Monday night's session was a public hearing at which the supervisors were not scheduled to take any action. The county Planning Commission will resume work on the Hollybrook rezoning application on May 18.
Also Monday, the Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning and special-use permit that will allow the Blacksburg Country Club to rebuild in the wake of the devastating arson in February that heavily damaged the clubhouse.
By a 6-0 vote, the board approved both measures, which were considered in a special, accelerated application process to help speed the club's rebuilding effort. Supervisor Joe Gorman noted that he's a member of the club, but thought that he could vote on its application objectively and in the public interest.
The rezoning was necessary because the original clubhouse predated the county zoning ordinance. In order to rebuild, it had to conform with the county's community business zoning rules.
Also Monday, the supervisors approved 5-1 one of the last major commercial developments in the U.S. 460 corridor at Peppers Ferry Road.
The approval gives the nod for phase VIII of the Arbor View Plantation, where a new Heironimus department store and a new Lowe's home improvement store will be built. The area is near the recently opened Kmart and behind the Market Place shopping center, on the site of a former Virginia Tech horticultural farm.
Whitethorne Plantations Inc. is developing the commercial subdivision, most of the earlier phases of which have been in an area annexed by Christiansburg in the late 1980s.
Supervisor Jim Moore of Blacksburg voted against accepting the development's final plat because of the speed with which the former rural land has developed into the retail hub of the New River Valley. Moore said development there has turned the downtowns of Christiansburg and Blacksburg into retail "ghost towns" and has had a negative impact on traffic.
by CNB