Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 21, 1995 TAG: 9503230048
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
TO ANSWER the question of whether economic development is best driven by market forces or constrained by controls, we first need to realize that a genuinely free market isn't operating today. The sprawl and helter-skelter development that eats up farms and forests is an outcome of government policy that subsidizes land speculation. Buying land in the hope of selling it later at a higher price prevents an efficient land-use pattern. Some land near the city is withheld from the urban market awaiting higher prices, making development go farther out, requiring expensive infrastructure that busts town budgets and making residents demand stricter controls.
This is a result of our upside-down tax system. Our tax dollars are pumping up land values, which fuels speculation and leads to the destruction of our rural countryside. Growth and government services catering to growth make land more valuable. Yet only a small part of the cost of roads, parks, schools, security and utilities that make land useful is paid for by the landowner. Property taxes make up only part of the revenues for these public works, and much of the real-estate tax is paid on improvements rather than just for the land.
This isn't a free market. We subsidize urban sprawl and the waste of land because it's politically taboo to have landowners pay for benefits they receive. Since we don't want to eliminate the source of the problem, we end up treating the effects with more controls.
FRED FOLDVARY
BLACKSBURG
BE FAIR
Don't make owners bear all costs
LOCAL GOVERNMENTS should manage and control growth in rural areas if the majority of citizens express their desire for it by electing public officials who indicate that they favor it.
Additionally, rural landowners should be compensated fairly for any reduction in the potential value of their property that results from regulations or zoning laws to restrict growth. If the ``public'' wants to maintain open space and enjoy a pretty view driving through rural areas of a county, the ``public'' - not the few private landowners affected by the restrictions - must be willing to pay for it.
ROBERT M. SHAFFER
RINER
SMART ROAD\ No more blight in Montgomery
YES, our region's rural areas need stricter controls on growth, and quickly, too - if it's important that we save something of the essential nature of our area that makes it so attractive to people for our progeny to enjoy as we have enjoyed it. It's going fast as mammonism drives society ever more and more.
It seems we're all for preservation of our special natural heritage until being so comes smack up against some proposal that promises a perceived El Dorado, then all ``green'' bets are off.
I live in Montgomery County. You know what happened to the U.S. 460 corridor at Virginia 114 junction. It 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. It took no strain of mental facilities to realize that runaway development, without compensating transportation upgrading, only asked for trouble. What the heck - it brought jobs and revenue, and still we learn nothing. The Wal-Mart Corp. has been given the green light to build a new megastore on this very corner years before any major highway improvement will be under way (the U.S. 460 bypass connector). You figure.
Despite the critical need to get on with the bypass connector, with most political and business bodies pleading for it, everything is all gaga about the ``smart road.''
There's an ugly rumor that some people are "no-growth" advocates concerning the smart road in Montgomery County. That's patently false. We all know that growth is inevitable, but we're concerned that it be done with perspicacity - as the New River Mall and Market Place were not, with the resultant blight.
Yet smart-road supporters ask no questions. Why is it so necessary, other than being the shortest distance between Blacksburg and Interstate 81 North, that it barrel through the Ellett Valley? Is no other less-impacting route possible? It is. Good authority has it that it could be combined with the bypass construction, save money and speed up the calendar for both.
LEONARD J. UTTAL
BLACKSBURG
In BOTETOURT
Another unwanted industry moves in
STRICTER controls on growth? You bet!
An excellent example of ``growth'' gone amuck is the proposed asphalt plant by Branch Highways on the site of the old Weblite plant in the Blue Ridge community of Botetourt County. Weblite polluted the air for more than 20 years until it was forced to finally close a couple of years ago, to the great relief of local citizens.
However, the county failed to consider and protect the rights and property values of these taxpaying residents by steering Branch away from this inappropriate site for another plant, nastier even than Weblite. In fact, it was reported to the Blue Ridge Concerned Citizens Action Group that the assistant county administrator actually expedited the approval of necessary paper work for this proposed asphalt plant, and did not attempt to steer Branch to another more appropriate site within the county. When Weblite left, action should have been taken then by county officials to rezone the area in view of its residential nature.
The old Weblite site is beside a narrow and winding country road shared by homes, the county's largest elementary school and the new Blue Ridge Park. This proposed plant would create severe traffic congestion with more than 600 noisy trucks per day coming and going on this road, which is the only access for residential traffic and school buses. It would also create safety hazards for residents and children, and air and ground pollution from a hazardous product.
This sort of situation should never happen with careful planning and reasonably strict controls on growth.
JAKE and PEGGY BAILEY
BLUE RIDGE
LITTERED LAND\ Looking like Northern Virginia
I WAS born and bred in Virginia as was my daddy and his daddy. Born in Leesburg, I grew up in Northern Virginia when it was a dairy-farm community. My grandfather's farm (what's left of it) still sits in the middle of the mess that was created when development went unbridled in that region. What many people don't realize is that development occurred over a very short time span - approximately 10 years. Local residents were promised better-paying jobs, etc. The ones I remember, ones still there, are no better off. Jobs created were minimum wage, and higher-paying jobs were often filled by others from out of state.
I attended Virginia Tech, and graduated in 1990. When I left Tech, the development in this region had just started. If you look in your March 7 newspaper, you'll see what has become of Montgomery County in a very short time. It greatly resembles Northern Virginia. Again, there were promises of things were made that didn't occur.
I'm not against development, but what concerns me is the lack of planning. What are we going to leave our children? Will it be strip malls, Burger Kings, and 7-Elevens haphazardly placed across the landscape? I want my nieces and nephews to know the beautiful Virginia in which I grew up, and I want them to experience the love and respect of the land, culture and history that develops from living in the most beautiful commonwealth in the nation.
I feel that if more citizens really got involved in community planning, our communities would better represent the different interests of all their citizens.
DARRELL LEE CROSON
LEXINGTON
ROOM WITH VIEW\ Don't sacrifice the environment
IT WOULD be sad for Roanoke to deteriorate into what other localities have become within the past decade. As citizens of this region, we need 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!
Roads, highways, etc. Where will Interstate 73 go between North Carolina and West Virginia? Why is it taking so long to do something in Virginia? Other states have their plans laid out. Use Interstate 77! It's great that Wal-Mart will build next to the Valley View Mall area, but we need an exit off I-581 to the mall, and one from the mall area to I-581. It appears that there's room for this, and it will free up the exit to Hershberger and the airport. Hershberger Road needs to be completed along the base of Reed Mountain, connecting to the Statesman and Roanoke Center for Industry industrial parks, to Virginia 604. This will help reduce some of the Orange Avenue traffic. The ``smart road'' to Blacksburg is needed.
Home construction. Looking at the base of Reed Mountain, the houses seem so congested. It's hard to imagine anyone enjoys living like that. Why build along the Blue Ridge Parkway to destroy a view with hideous homes close together? Developers should rebuild downtown and in inner-city neighborhoods. I hope citizens of Botetourt County won't let inevitable growth make the southern part of that county resemble Roanoke. Progress is OK, but let's not destroy our environment.
Local government. Mergers are apparently out of the question, so how about good old cooperation in delivering services from all localities?
This should help make our region more marketable for tourists who think of Virginia as a beach with some military activity, and as a huge suburb of Washington, D.C.
GEORGE F. EWEN
ROANOKE
READY FOR CHANGE\ Citizens must become involved
THE ANSWER to your Readers Forum question is more complex than ``yes'' or ``no.'' We must try to make sure we have growth, as an entire region, to offer more economic, educational and cultural benefits than are available now.
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). I believe we, landowners or not, must participate. We must be aware of land and economic development. Public and private planners, engineers, preservationists, university researchers, educators, developers and legislators are valuable resources, and are often willing to work with citizens.
I don't believe the goal should be control. It should be planning for changes to be an attractive region for landowners, developers, businesses, taxpayers, tourists and future generations. We each need to be involved in knowing about and planning for changes, and striving for cooperation - whether or not we take active civic roles. We're obligated to keep our area attractive, affordable and growing.
SHARON KENNEDY\ CATAWBA VALLEY
RESOLVE CONFLICTS\ Bedford's LUGS is a good tool
IT'S IMPORTANT to first have at least a thumbnail understanding of why land-use planning isn't an automatic function of our local governments. As the boundary of this nation's frontier (a euphemism for the countryside) was pushed westward and outward with the evolution of what we now label as sprawl, resulting development tensions have proved to be costly and irreversible.
Thomas Jefferson envisioned a nation with plenty of open space as he prophesied that political stability for the embryonic nation was dependent upon a culture based in farming. Civic virtue, he argued to his friends writing the Constitution in 1787, would prosper as long as the agrarian way of life thrived and self-government was possible.
On the other hand, fellow Virginian James Madison wished to offset Jefferson's idealism with some practical ideas of his own, and believed that a procedural republic where citizens were scattered and kept apart stood the best chance of surviving. Born of that thinking was the concept of regulatory overview, which is the subject of much vilification today.
Their debate, though too often unacknowledged two centuries later, was embedded into the drafting of the Constitution. Our system of a representative and procedural government has pretty much dictated the conflicting patterns of land use that our society is confronting here in the late 20th century. The problem today, though, is that unlike a century ago when Jefferson's frontier was symbolically declared closed, now our frontiers are literally overflowing from our neighbors' back yards. And we don't like that any more than we like being told what we can or cannot do with our property.
The solution to this conundrum? As much as the constitutional right to bear arms requires a costly law-enforcement culture and emerging prison-industrial complex, so does the right to own property carry with it inherent responsibilities - personal as well as governmental. Included in that sweeping statement are some departures from the traditional paradigm of looking at land-settlement patterns. Certainly local, regional and state governments should coordinate their planning systems, and more efficient use of tax-supported infrastructure is an underutilized tool for containing growth. It's also a shame that the 1995 General Assembly didn't muster the Madisonian courage to adopt the watered-down Virginia Growth Strategies Act, which would have been a huge step forward in terms of regional land-use planning.
However, there is a development tool at hand in Southwest Virginia that represents a happy marriage of citizen involvement and land-use decision-making. The Bedford County Land Use Guidance System is a flexible, citizen-oriented approach to zoning that ought to be considered in those counties reluctant to welcome the concept yet acknowledging the need for some control over rampant, unchecked and expensive growth.
In the final analysis, it's the conservation of resources in conjunction with the expanding service demands from our growing population that places the real burden on local government. Changing the way we think about that burden and involving citizens face to face is the key to answering the question of why stricter but flexible growth management is necessary, and how it will best be accomplished in rural Southwest Virginia.
ANDY KEGLEY
WYTHEVILLE
BALANCING ACT\ Intrusive growth is not inevitable
GROWING UP in the New River Valley, I saw firsthand the explosion of growth along the U.S. 460 corridor between Blacksburg and Christiansburg. While I welcome the new variety in shopping and restaurants, I could do without the traffic jams, storm-water problems, and the visual onslaught of sign after sign and parking space after parking space. These problems were avoidable.
Nearly two years ago, with a brand-new masters degree from Virginia Tech, I set off for Montana to join the world of community planning. I wasn't surprised to find that growth issues are the same, though the framework may be different. Attempts at zoning have been met with cries of communism and death threats. Comprehensive planning has been more of an afterthought than a guide for growth. The disregard for ecosystems, natural processes or even community services is recognizable everywhere. The fact is, private-property rights, i.e., the right to use our land as we see fit, costs us all money.
Development rarely occurs without the need for additional services, which continually add to the tax burden we all must pay. Even worse, continued development without regard to neighbors, community or natural environment costs all of us irreplaceable resources. Wildlife habitat, a stunning view of the mountains or a scenic drive can vanish before we know what happened.
Growth is often inevitable, even desired by a community. Rampant, costly, intrusive growth isn't inevitable. We must decide how we want to grow. Through careful planning, we can balance the desires of individual landowners with common goals of the community. Government needs only to act as the administrator of our goals, desires, and the direction that we provide.
ALAN McCORMICK
Assistant Planner
Lewis and Clark County
HELENA, MT
FREE COUNTRY\ Outsiders try to call the shots
THE THING that disturbs me most is that the people complaining about growth in rural areas are the ones who have in recent years moved out from the city. They say that they got theirs, and don't let any more come because they like it the way it is.
These people, and others who don't even live in the community, want restrictions such as zoning and, yes, even easements, forcing landowners to give up their property rights. 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.
I love all people and respect their opinions. But how many who favor control of someone else's property are willing to step forward to offer just compensation to landowners when their land becomes a liability instead of an asset due to land restriction?
WES SOWDER
ROANOKE
by CNB