Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994                   TAG: 9412200067
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

TOWN, COUNTY GET RETIREMENT COMMUNITY SITE PROPOSAL

The drawings depict how 1,500 units of town homes, houses, condominiums, commercial buildings and neighborhood centers would be built in nine phases upon the rolling countryside at the northeast part of town and in the surrounding county.

The drawings, available to the public, differ little from the plans shown during an information meeting two weeks ago, although one building's location and another's height have been adjusted in an effort to respond to nearby residents' complaints that they would take away from one of the area's best features: the view.

Duane Hyde, a senior planner with Blacksburg's Planning and Engineering Department, and County Planner Jeff Scott are to meet this morning to review the plans. The two governments plan to work together through the rezoning process.

Developers William Farr and Joseph Edone, both of Floyd County, hold options on the land, and hope to get its zoning converted to Planned Development Residential in the town and Planned Unit Development, a new zoning category, in the county.

Both types of zoning allow for a mixture of residential and commercial units, but require that site plans be followed more stringently than other types of zoning which do not address an overall purpose such as the Patton's Grant proposal.

"Essentially this is a statement of the the way this is going to be laid out," said Bob Rogers, an architect with Blacksburg-based Architectural Alternatives Inc., which is working with Project Manger Wendell Whitee of Virginia Beach to build the community. "This is the intent of the developers."

Among other things, the community for residents 55 years of age and older would contain:

52 town home and patio home units in Blacksburg, on which 48 acres of the community would be built, along with 99 apartments or condominiums and a nursing home or assisted living center of more than 100 units or beds;

110 single family units in the remaining 252 acres in Montgomery County, along with 505 town homes or patio homes, 618 condos or apartments in buildings up to five stories tall;

Commercial areas along Blacksburg's North Main Street, with professional offices, a bank and retail stores;

A chapel, memorial park, centers for recreation and small conferences, and a service center for storage and maintenance;

Open space in more than a third of the total area.

Hyde said the town's Planning Commission would receive copies of the plans next month, and would then turn them over to the Environmental Quality and Land Use committee for review. Scott said the county's Development Committee likely would be working with the town's committee, and the two governments are going to try to coordinate some of the legally required public meetings.

The planning departments of both governments have been working closely with the community's backers since they announced their intentions last August, and neither Scott nor Hyde noted any surprises in the submitted plans. Still, in explaining the need for government coordination and the task of analysis awaiting planners, Hyde said Monday, "There's so many factors involved with a project of this size."