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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 26, 1995                   TAG: 9507260045
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER  
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                  LENGTH: Medium

GULF LOOMS WIDE IN DEBATE OVER GROWTH

New subdivisions make money for developers and produce real-estate tax revenue. But they also cost money in terms of remedying crowded classrooms and providing other government services.

County planners say Montgomery has one of the least restrictive zoning laws in the region. That's great for developers, but may cost the county in the long run to, say, build sewer lines to a subdivision once septic systems fail.

After an hour, a philosophical divide yawned wide between members of Montgomery County's elected Board of Supervisors and appointed Planning Commission.

On the one hand Monday were those, such as Supervisor Henry Jablonski, who favored guiding growth by making rural landowners who want to split up their land into building lots to do so under subdivision rules. That doesn't have to happen today.

On other hand were those who say any such step will be seen as a government taking of private property rights.

The gulf loomed so wide, and so emotional, that an angry county Board of Supervisors chairman, Larry Linkous, cut off discussion on another subject - revising the county's comprehensive plan - because he said the hour had been wasted.

All that had been resolved is that the Planning Commission will prepare a new scheme to limit allowable minimum rural lot sizes. They'll pick a limit that's somewhere between the current 1/2-acre standard - which critics say encourages shortsighted developments - and the 20-acre proposal that caused controversy last fall before the supervisors rejected it.

If the board eliminated the right to subdivide agriculturally zoned land, and instead forced rural landowners to apply for a rezoning, then people are going to be upset, suggested commission member Joe Draper. "You're going to have an awful large roomful of people here seeing their rights taken away," he said.

Jablonski said the county had a legitimate role in requiring a subdivision rezoning. He said it would protect existing landowners from a development going in next door that's out of character with their homes.

Supervisor Nick Rush said more government review will push up costs and price young people out of the market, forcing them to rent in Christiansburg or Blacksburg or move out of Montgomery. Moreover, he said, he hasn't seen any proof that rural septic systems will fail. "Where's all the problems?" he asked. "I hear a lot of doom and gloom."