Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501240047
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Aside from approval or rejection, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors could postpone a decision until it amends its 1990 comprehensive plan to make it fit Price's proposed uses.
The board meets at 7 p.m. Monday on the third floor of the Montgomery County Courthouse in downtown Christiansburg. Also on the agenda will be public hearings on applying for another $235,585 in federal money for the Huckleberry Trail project, and on a proposal to open a game room in the Lancer Truck Stop at Ironto.
Price wants the board to rezone 12 acres along U.S. 460 just south of the Giles County line from agricultural to general business use, so he could move his service station from Blacksburg. Opponents say it would ruin a scenic gateway to the county.
Price has pledged to use his property only for vehicle repairs and storage, occasional sales of used cars, gas and food sales and, later, a small-scale farm equipment sales operation. He's also pledged to "preserve the essence of the wooded nature of the environs" by using a design that would blend in.
The Planning Commission recommended denial this week, primarily because the comprehensive plan says that stretch of road should remain rural. Price's attorney has argued that a general business use is compatible with a rural area under the comprehensive plan. Four commissioners disagreed.
Monday's third option would table the Price rezoning to give the Board of Supervisors time to amend the comprehensive plan to fit the uses Price has proffered. Under the law, once a developer makes a proffer, or formal pledge to restrict his use of a property in a rezoning, the conditions cannot be modified without starting the entire rezoning process over again.
Three of the current supervisors - Henry Jablonski, Ira Long and Joe Stewart - voted in favor of the same project when the board, led by four members who no longer serve, rejected it in 1987. Two current supervisors are undecided and two appear likely to vote against the rezoning.
On the Huckleberry Trail, the board will hold a public hearing on whether the county should submit a second grant application to cover a 48 percent increase in the cost of the six-mile, rails-to-trails link between downtown Blacksburg and the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg. Huckleberry supporters blame the price increase on higher construction costs and expensive, delay-causing federal regulations.
As part of the application for another $235,585 in federal money, the county, Blacksburg, Christiansburg and a private trail group have each been asked to chip in about $15,000 a piece, Jeff Rice, an assistant county planner, said Friday. That makes for a total increase of $294,481. The original project cost was to have been $612,300, composed of $453,424 from the first federal grant and $158,876 from the local governments and People Advocating the Huckleberry, the trail group.
Blacksburg and Christiansburg have already pledged the money. The Montgomery board is to decide after the hearing. The county must submit the grant application by Jan. 31 to the state Transportation Department, which is administering the federal funds.
by CNB