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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503060007
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE CHANGING COUNTRYSIDE

"Twenty years ago, when I was the manager of a county in the eastern end of the state, we were faced with a massive residential development that was going to threaten our finances. We had to do a very thorough analysis of the cost of growth; and at that time in that county, under our cost and income particulars, it took almost a $200,000 house with one child to be a break-even residential property. That was 20 years ago."

- Macon Sammons, Franklin County administrator

\ "I like a lot of the growth in Botetourt County. I like it that a lot of people have moved in. I like the demands they're placing on our school system. I think it makes it better."

- Lillian Beahm, Cloverdale audiologist

\ "So many of our rural areas that are farmland have been bought out and developed for mobile homes and therefore it's not bringing the tax money in that the farms did."

- Lois English, Franklin County supervisor

\ "The private-sector business people, like Boone, Strauss, they're not bad people. They reacted to the market and were in it to make money. Nothing wrong with that. And they made their money and the pressure is now back on local governments to take care of the problems."

- Bob Johnson, Roanoke County supervisor

by CNB