Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 15, 1995 TAG: 9508150055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Then he showed up at Cave Spring High School in April for a community meeting on Roanoke County's future.
Before Stokes knew it, not only had he committed to months of research and debate, but he had volunteered to serve as chairman for one of 10 focus groups. The groups were charged with studying specific issues facing the county and sharing their dreams for the county's future.
Tonight at 7 in the County Administration Building, Stokes and others will present their "visions" of Roanoke County in 2010 to the Board of Supervisors.
The meeting will be broadcast live on cable channel 3, the public access channel.
"Until they're threatened, most people don't get involved, and I have to plead guilty to that to some extent," said Stokes, who went to the April meeting because of a neighborhood zoning concern. "What brought me here was one item, but I hope what we've done can truly make a difference for future generations."
The focus groups, with the oversight of a 15-person steering committee, studied everything from resource protection to government relations. Some met two or three times. Others, like Stokes' growth and land use group, met once a week for more than two months.
"We stayed at it two hours. And people didn't want to leave. We'd find ourselves there hours after we said we'd be," Stokes said.
A 15-page document that took nearly four months and more than 200 residents to produce is the result of the focus groups' efforts.
In sometimes flowery language, it paints an image of a Roanoke County in 2010 with a light-rail system, greenways, tax incentives to encourage protection of scenic views, increased citizen participation and regional cooperation.
The focus group reports are the second step in a $40,000, three-phase process to get residents involved in planning the county's future. A $10,000 survey of residents conducted by Virginia Tech was the first.
Once it's presented to supervisors today, the county will begin a three-week "dog-and-pony show," taking the report to county neighborhoods and soliciting more input.
"There's no right and wrong here. It's their dream, and you can't tell someone their dream is wrong," said County Planner Janet Scheid.
However, you can revise and add to that dream, which is what the steering committee and the county staff will do before presenting the final draft to the public Oct. 28. The report must then return to the Board of Supervisors for approval.
The process, however, won't end there.
"Visioning," as the county calls its effort to get input in shaping its future, is merely the framework for where the county wants to go.
The comprehensive plan, a detailed study of where growth should and shouldn't go and how the county will protect natural resources, is the nuts and bolts of how it will get there, said Jim Sears, chairman of the steering committee.
An update of that plan is what the year-long process has been leading up to. And the county, again with participation by residents, will begin doing so in January, Scheid said.
"In establishing that plan, we should all stop and say, 'What did the vision report say about this?''' Sears said.
That's the way Scheid and Stokes said they'd like to see things unfold.
"It was a concern that I think everyone had. Will the county administration and the Board of Supervisors take heart of what all the groups have done? We're just hoping we didn't spend time and more time doing something that will sit on a shelf," Stokes said.
Sears was involved in the New Century Council - a public-private effort that developed an economic vision for the Roanoke Valley, the New River Valley and the Alleghany Highlands - and he would like to see Roanoke County's report incorporated into the council's.
He's confident the county's report will have an impact.
"When you engage in a process like this, you change the way people think and act and the way elected officials make decisions. You also are alerting citizens to the need for and value of their participation," Sears said. "By many, many months and years, it is not over."
by CNB