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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995                   TAG: 9506120026
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

BOUNDARY DEAL UP FOR HEARING

The public will have what may be the last chance Monday to comment on a proposed expansion of Christiansburg's boundaries around the Marketplace shopping center and the Falling Branch Industrial Park before a deal is sealed between the town and Montgomery County.

The Town Council and county Board of Supervisors will hold a joint public hearing beginning at 7 p.m. Monday on the third floor of the Montgomery County Courthouse in downtown Christiansburg. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to approve the proposal afterward.

Also Monday, the Board of Supervisors will resume discussion of the county School Board's plan that calls for building four new schools over the next five years at a cost of more than $34 million. The supervisors declined to commit to the plan at a special meeting two weeks ago.

The town-county agreements, if approved, will mark the end of nearly a year of closed-door negotiations between the council and the supervisors.

The council and board will take comments Monday on two proposed accords: one that would require Christiansburg to pay for extending water and sewer service to the county's proposed Falling Branch Industrial Park; and a second that would adjust the town's boundaries to take in 270 acres around Falling Branch and 30 acres behind the Marketplace shopping center.

The county's goal was to find the least-expensive way to provide public utilities to the industrial park. Through these accords, Christiansburg is agreeing to do just that in return for the boundary adjustments. Expanding its boundaries will allow the town to take in an immediate tax-revenue increase from the Marketplace area - because the 30 acres includes the new Lowe's and Heironimus stores - and a share in future growth from the industrial park, which will eventually be right next to a major new Interstate 81 interchange.

The county expects to pay a maximum of $5 million to build roads and grade the 165-acre complex off Falling Branch Road, right next to the 3-year-old elementary school of the same name. The town this week released a budget that anticipates spending more than $1 million on the industrial park utility lines.

by CNB