Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 21, 1995 TAG: 9503210132
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As evidence, many cite fast-growth areas that they don't want Southwest Virginia communities to emulate, from "the urban chaos that exists in the megalopolis sprawl from Boston to Washington, D.C." to U.S. 460 in Montgomery County, one stretch of which "has now become the retail hub of the region, but at the price of creating horrible conditions for the simple thing of going to and fro in the county."
Yet, while no one argues for sprawling housing subdivisions, traffic congestion, strip development and the wholesale destruction of the natural environment, a couple of letter-writers remind those who favor tighter land-use controls that the countryside they so appreciate remains largely in private hands, and its owners have their own interests to consider.
If most people want open spaces preserved, writes a Riner reader, they should elect like-minded public officials - and be prepared to pay landowners for whatever reductions they see in the potential value of land that has been zoned to restrict growth. (Potential value?) A Roanoke reader reasonably notes that some of those now complaining about development in rural areas moved there from the city just a few years ago. "Most landowners and families who have worked hard and paid taxes all their lives to own and keep their land in this alleged free country now can be told that it's not theirs," the letter-writer complains.
What to do? Well, how about attending to the wisdom in a letter from a Catawba woman? The issue, she writes, should not be one of imposing controls to impede growth. It should be a matter of "planning for changes to be an attractive region" for all. "Citizens in both urban and rural areas are responsible for promoting and protecting our assets (mountain vistas, industries, cultural activities) and for planning the promotion and development of additional assets (businesses, greenways, housing, education, preservation areas and outdoor attractions)."
Sorry, but this region needs growth - lots of it - to become a dynamic economy and to provide the kinds of jobs and quality of life that most people want. And growth isn't always pretty.
But, as the Catawba writer suggests, the region also needs to preserve assets that invite growth, and this can only happen if residents assume responsibility for what their communities will look and be like years from now.
The need for greater involvement by all citizens - landowners or not, urban dwellers or rural - is a thread through several of today's Readers Forum letters. One expresses discontent with a new industry planned for Botetourt County. Another questions the process for choosing a route for the proposed Interstate 73. Another complains about congested housing developments in once-rural areas; still another, about the "traffic jams, storm-water problems, and the visual onslaught" of explosive commercial growth.
But a common exhortation, as one writer puts it, is to "realize how our decisions will affect our future, and generations to come. Political clowning around isn't healthy for us. Let's get real!"
Change can happen rapidly. A Lexington man who grew up in Leesburg when that part of Northern Virginia was still dairy-farm country warns: "What many people don't realize is that development occurred over a very short time span - approximately 10 years."
Overall, today's responses urge citizens to care now; to bring their various views and interests and come together now to work out reasonable plans for growth in their communities; to demand government action now to implement such planning. Next year, the year after, the year after that ... at some point not far off, it will be too late to plan change carefully.
by CNB