Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408160055
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But in southwestern Montgomery County, the long-term future may belong to commuters rather than cows.
Since the late 1980s, developers have created six major large-lot subdivisions in the Riner and Childress areas south of Interstate 81 between Christiansburg and Radford. That's about 150 new lots, a figure easily equaled by less noticeable single-lot developments in the area.
Framed by Pilot Mountain to the south and Calfee Knob to the west, the rolling, open fields of the Riner area contain some of Montgomery's best farmland.
Riner area contain some of Montgomery's best farmland. But with a late-'90s boom of commercial growth anticipated just to the north along Virginia 177, or Tyler Road, the picturesque area may become even more attractive to developers and home buyers alike.
With the new development, Montgomery County is facing two key issues:
Crowded schools. With young families moving to the area, the county School Board must look for ways to provide more classroom space in the Riner and Bethel areas, particularly for elementary-school children. Paying for any one of several expansion or new-building schemes will require a major commitment by the county Board of Supervisors and taxpayers. The cheapest option, according to a recent report, would cost nearly $10 million.
Managing growth. The county is looking at ways to encourage developers to extend public water and sewer lines to subdivisions rather than rely on individual wells and septic systems. But developers have chafed at some of the proposals, and there are only small existing sewage and water systems in the Riner area. The Board of Supervisors also has discussed how much agricultural districts and land-use tax breaks help farmers keep their farms.
Farmers and the future
"Riner's been growing up for the last 20 years, I guess," said Bill Greear, a cattle farmer and subdivision developer. "It just hasn't been as concentrated."
In some parts of the area, change can seem far off. The landscape along Virginia 8, or Riner Road, remains dominated by rolling pastures, dairy barns, silos and cattle herds.
One of the first big subdivisions was Country Meadow Estates, built in the mid-1970s on a low ridge above Meadow Creek. Its geographical orientation is away from Riner and toward I-81.
The new subdivisions - Childress, Lucas and Ridgeway Farm estates and the Lawrence subdivision, all developed by Carl McNeil and Randy Gardner - are far more visible in the farming community. Two others, Eaglebrook Estates and the Smith Creek subdivision, are nearby but more isolated.
Not all are complete successes. While Childress and Lucas estates are sold out, Ridgeway Farm is practically empty. Work on the Lawrence and Smith Creek subdivisions is just beginning.
Just behind Riner Elementary School, though, stands possibly the most visible new development: the 15-home suburban neighborhood of Auburn Acres, which Greear subdivided from his family's Windy Hills Farm four years ago. The subdivision, which eventually could include another 18 lots, resembles its counterparts across Virginia: treeless lots with medium-sized homes located off a cul-de-sac.
Just a short distance away, the family's farming continues. The Greears switched from dairy to beef cattle farming two years ago, after more than 60 years of milking cows.
The profit in farming is not what it used to be, Greear said. That's one factor that led him to ask the county to remove the subdivision's 43 acres from a special, low-tax status and agricultural and forestal district four years ago. Greear had to pay five years of back taxes based on a higher, fair-market assessment to develop the land.
Also, at 58, he's getting older. His son recently graduated from college and hasn't decided whether to go into farming full time. Selling the subdivided land is one way to prepare for retirement, Greear said. The family still farms 125 acres near the subdivision and 370 acres elsewhere in the area.
Joe Hunnings, the county's agricultural extension agent, said the new subdivisions present opportunities, and sometimes problems, for farmers. Some farmers are diversifying into small fruit and vegetable production, such as strawberry and blackberry patches. In those cases, new homes mean new customers. But the new neighbors also may be unaccustomed to the smells, sights and activities of farming, which can lead to conflict.
Overall, though, the Riner area remains the major center of dairy farming in Montgomery County. There are 30 dairies in the county, most near Riner.
"Obviously, things are always going to change," Hunnings said. "But I think dairymen in Riner can and will be profitable for a long time to come."
Guiding growth
The Board of Supervisors has been reluctant to embrace policies some claim would allow the county to get ahead of suburban growth. There's a strong pro-development and anti-government-regulation streak among a majority of the seven board members.
But the board will soon face having to pay for a need created by the new growth: relieving overcrowded classrooms.
That prompted Auburn High School students to take the lead in bringing the growth issue to the public eye this spring. Government classes hosted a community forum on planning for growth that drew about 35 people.
"We're growing too fast; we're outgrowing our ability to provide services," said Jim Martin, who last year narrowly lost the election to represent the Riner area on the Board of Supervisors. During his campaigning, he said he detected concern over how fast the area is growing and the disappearance of farmland.
Martin, who lives in the Vicker community miles from Riner, is vice chairman of the county Planning Commission. Though former Chairman J. Edwin Keith is a retired Riner dairy farmer, the commission currently has no members from Riner.
"I think the Planning Commission needs to take a little stronger stance when it comes to planning for that area, especially when it comes to the schools being overcrowded," said Martin.
But the planners only make recommendations; the Board of Supervisors has the final say. Supervisor Henry Jablonski, who narrowly defeated Martin, said he heard more people worried about jobs than suburban growth in the district he's represented since 1982.
Jablonski said the county will eventually have to do something to get more new subdivisions on public water and sewer systems. Also, he called school overcrowding a "valid concern.
The three school buildings in the area, the Riner and Bethel elementary schools and the combined Auburn Middle and High School, are all either overcrowded or right at capacity. In June, school officials unveiled a consultant's study of school conditions and suggested ways to solve concerns such as overcrowding. This summer and fall a school committee will review the plans and possibly come up with others suggestions before presenting recommendations to the School Board. That board will then pass on a plan to the supervisors, who would be responsible for coming up with the money.
The four options for the Riner area involve closing one or more of the older schools, converting some to different grade levels and building new schools. The options range in cost from $9.9 million to $17.5 million, but the estimates don't include the cost of land.
Such a price tag - and similar improvements are also needed in the Shawsville area - raises the issue of how the county can get ahead of the growth curve. One way to guide development, according to county Planning Director Joe Powers, is through public utilities. But that tool, Powers wrote for the May seminar on Riner's growth, is lost if utilities follow development only to correct problems such as contaminated wells and failing septic systems.
The county's long-range water and wastewater study, completed last fall, predicted a population growth rate of 1.6 percent per year for the Riner area through 2025. The study notes that high-density development is feasible only where centralized sewage treatment plants are located, and because Riner lacks such a feature, that should limit demand for public utilities.
But it may not limit the demand for "elbow room," developer Gardner's term for the feature home buyers most desire in the Riner area: at least 1 acre of land. For instance, in the recently approved Heritage Place subdivision along Mud Pike, the developer estimated a cost of $2 million or more to extend sewer lines nearly 21/2 miles to a Christiansburg sewage treatment plant. The county approved the first sections of the subdivision with individual septic systems.
> Moreover, such a cost means the developer needs to recoup the expense by increasing the density of lots. "When you have water and sewer, the developer cannot afford to sell large enough lots with elbow room," Gardner said.
County officials are discussing ways to tighten the subdivision ordinance's requirement that developers hook up to utilities only when they're within 200 feet of a water or sewer line. For now, though, the large-lot subdivisions of the Riner area can get by on septic systems alone, according to the water study. If commercial development along Virginia 8 or residential growth were to intensify, an expensive, centralized sanitary sewer system would be required.
> The county's 1990 comprehensive plan plan was drafted before most of the new Riner-area subdivisions were developed, and it envisioned limited residential development for Riner and Childress.
"You could probably say we did not anticipate the amount of development out there," Powers said. Should the Planning Commission recommend changes to the comprehensive plan, and the Board of Supervisors agree to them, a public hearing will be held.
If the long-simmering issue of growth in rural areas garners the attention of more than just high-school students, it could even become a political hot potato in 1995, when four of the seven supervisors seats will be up for election.
by CNB