Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9407140005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
With a 7-0 vote, Town Council decided this week to officially add the open-space planning initiative to the town's 1991 Comprehensive Plan.
The action, taken Tuesday, means that the efforts of dozens of residents, who worked for months to come up with the initiative last year for the Montgomery County Planning Commission, have been accepted on something more than a theoretical level.
The county's Board of Supervisors voted the plan down in December after some supervisors and landowners argued that it would lead to government infringement on property rights.
While planners and town staffers often mention the benefits of "open space" in their reports on various subdivisions and developments, adding the initiative to the town's comprehensive plan lends a more formal air to the ideas it embodies.
"When you append something to the comprehensive plan ... it officially signals the public that this is the town's posture," Mayor Roger Hedgepeth said Thursday.
The next step will be to work the open-space ideas into even stronger policy-making tools, specifically the zoning ordinances, which are currently being rewritten.
The plan might encourage a developer to cluster houses together on smaller lots while surrounding them with more open space. It addresses such topics as farm and forest conservation, protection of water resources and historic preservation.
Thursday, Joe Gorman, the Montgomery County supervisor from Blacksburg and one of the two who voted unsuccessfully for adoption of the plan last winter, said "it would've been a disappointment," had the council quashed it.
"A lot of people put a genuine effort into it," he said. "The plan did ... a very good job of integrating all the facets that have to be considered.
"It's a very flexible way of appreciating the environment and working it in a direction that doesn't degradate" it, he said.
The amendment's passage did not come without some debate, though. The resolution council adopted referred to a paragraph under a section titled "Alternative Development Options" for Blacksburg.
Reflecting a desire to retain flexibility in zoning decisions, Councilman Waldon Kerns objected to the use of the words "landscape preservation" in reference to issues that development options should address.
"What, in fact, does it mean to talk about landscape preservation?" Kerns asked. ``` Preservation' is getting to be known as, `Don't touch it; Don't do anything with it.'''
Kerns wanted the phrase changed to something that would reflect a desire for attention to be paid to the landscape, but not tie the hands of developers who, perhaps in innovative ways, may be able to build in an environmentally acceptable manner.
```Preservation' to me means you couldn't implement some of these techniques," Kerns said.
After some debate, council decided to unanimously accept Kerns' amended version of the paragraph, which changed the phrase to "sensitivity to the landscape."
Said Councilman Michael Chandler, "It's wordsmithing, and that's good."
by CNB