Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506140029
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: D-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia is not one of these states.
The need for such a plan was seen by former Gov. Gerald Baliles, under whose watch Virginia's population passed the 6 million mark in 1988, making it the nation's 12th most populous state and one of the fastest growing. Growth, as Baliles frequently noted, can bring prosperity. But it also brings daunting challenges - straining natural resources and public resources, including roads, hospitals, schools and utilities.
At stake is not a simple conflict between economic development and conservation. The question is how to promote development in such a way that it can be sustained. The goal is long-term growth.
To pursue this goal, a strategic plan for growth-management is needed. That's what Baliles hoped would emerge from the Virginia Commission on Population Growth and Development, which he helped create in 1989.
Alas, it was not to be.
The commission will officially disband this month without having accomplished its mission - without, truth to tell, even coming close.
Virtually every recommendation it initially considered, then made to the General Assembly, butted into special interests - most notably real-estate developers - and local interests, including local governments' continuing resistance to regional planning.
Even a proposal as obviously sensible as one encouraging local comprehensive plans went nowhere. Given how different the regions of Virginia are, the lack of strong inducements for regional planning is even more damaging than the lack of a state strategy.
To be sure, the commission's efforts also were frustrated by the recession of the early '90s. No one was in the mood to hamper economic development in any way. Jobs and expanded tax bases were all that mattered, and if the landscape got run over by sprawl, tough.
According to one projection, Virginia's population will increase another 30 percent in the next two or three decades. Yet here we are in '95 without a big-picture public policy - which can only be put in place by the governor and the legislature - to prepare for and manage that growth. It's a shame and an outrage.
What we'll likely get, as a result, is what we've got: pell-mell local planning for land use and resources that does not take into account regional interests; that aggravates, rather than addresses, economic, social and environmental problems; and that does not include mechanics for dealing with growth-and-development disputes - such as the Lake Gaston pipeline controversy and the now-defunct Disney's America theme park proposal - which have regional and statewide ramifications.
Says Del. W. Tayloe Murphy of Warsaw, who chaired the commission: ''We've been dealing with a lot of difficult issues that are not easily resolved, but issues that are not going away.'' Right he is.
Virginia needs to try again, with the kind of strong leadership from the governor's office that Baliles would have provided, were he in office now. To quote him: When it comes to daunting issues of growth and development, ``the key lies in one word: resolve.''
by CNB