Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160114
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The board agreed on Monday to fund a $1.3 million site search and design for the facility, a decision that was in line with School Board Chairman Roy Vickers' call for a "sense of urgency" about the new school.
That money will be borrowed from the schools' operating funds and reimbursed next spring by the sale of state school bonds, a step that can be handled administratively.
But the supervisors 3-2 approval reflected hesitancy about comprehensive plans to build three more county schools and pay for them with $7 million in general obligation bonds - if voters agree.
"I want the school built out there, but I don't have enough information to vote on $7 million bonds," Supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous said.
Several board members raised their eyebrows when they were told that debt service on the bond sale alone could increase the county's real estate tax rate from 2 to 2.5 cents.
Nick Rush, who joined fellow supervisor Joe Stewart in voting against appropriating the $1.3 million, said the plan to alleviate overcrowding by building four new schools - new middle schools in Christiansburg and Blacksburg and a new Shawsville high school, in addition to the new Riner elementary - is flawed.
He suggested that renovations or expansions of existing facilities might be more cost-effective. And the plan to replace two existing schools, the present Riner elementary and Bethel Elementary, with the new Riner school didn't account for what do to with the vacant buildings, Rush added.
The board also put a speed limit on a resolution to approve the Riner school proposed by the School Board.
The approved motion says the county will seek an option on a school site before deciding to buy it. And it authorized preparing documents for the state bond sale instead of saying specifically that the county would sell them.
Supervisors Ira Long and Joe Gorman did not attend the meeting.
In other business, the board voted 4-1 to rezone 27 acres beside Bethel Woods subdivision from agricultural to restricted residential status.
The vote represents a victory for neighborhood residents concerned about what they saw as incompatible uses of the adjoining property, located beside Interstate 81 south of Radford.
"It's wrong to try to combine these things. There has to be a line between residential and agricultural," Bethel Woods resident Jeff Stewart told the board.
Agricultural zoning allows trailers, kennels and other uses that could threaten the neighborhood's atmosphere, Bethel residents believe.
In March, the property's developers, Hough-Nichols Inc. of Roanoke and W.H. Maddy Jr. of Christiansburg, had sought to rezone the land to allow a trailer subdivision. The Board of Supervisors voted against that move in April and initiated the residential rezoning, which would prevent livestock, and also prevent trailers.
That move upset the developers, who already had begun to sell lots.
But on Monday, to the applause of Bethel Woods residents, the rezoning was approved by a 4-1 vote.
Linkous, the lone "nay" vote, said he sympathized with the neighborhood's goals, but objected to the precedent of this case, which involved a rezoning initiated by the supervisors.
"It's a really, really unusual request," he said.
The board also voted to build a new county swimming pool and pay for the project with a $450,000 insurance settlement.
That money comes from damages that closed the Mid-County Park pool last May. The new replacement pool will be more "child-friendly," according to its designers, and will benefit from the visibility the pool will have from the proposed Christiansburg-Blacksburg connector road, also known as Alternative 3-A.
by CNB