ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
Just hours after Roanoke County made the biggest industrial development deal in its history, residents of West Roanoke County said they have enough industrial sites in their area.
Now they want other areas of the county to share the load.
That is what more than 200 West Roanoke County residents demanded of county administrators and planners Wednesday night at a meeting at Glenvar High School about possible future industrial sites in West County.
Earlier Wednesday, county officials announced that R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. of Chicago plans to open a book printing plant next year in the county's Valley TechPark, off U.S. 460 west of Salem.
The R.R. Donnelley plant would almost fill Valley TechPark, leaving the county with no large potential industrial sites in that area.
Last May, the Board of Supervisors told the county's Industrial Development Authority to seek rezoning of more than 40 parcels, totaling about 955 acres, to attract businesses.
Economic Development Director Tim Gubala and the authority had approached the board with a plan to bank those tracts, so residential developers wouldn't take all of the county's prime land first.
Nearly half of that land was a 457-acre tract that abuts a residential development off Glenvar Heights Road and is within a mile of Valley TechPark.
Four smaller sites also were on the rezoning list, some less controversial.
But 279 residents who signed a petition circulated by Charles Landis, a West County civic leader, said they wanted the county to drop any potential industrial or commercial rezoning that is not contiguous to existing land of that type.
They said such rezoning would be a threat to their quality of life and property values.
"We live in this part of the county because we don't want industrial sites on top of us," said Stan Statzer. "This end of the county has received every kind of junk you can think of," he said, mentioning the Spring Hollow Reservoir, the Smith Gap landfill and other industrial sites that have polluted ground water in some areas of West County.
"Aren't there other sections of the county that are conducive to industrial growth?" asked Robert Crouse, a former candidate for the Board of Supervisors. "We've had enough in our area."
But there's no place left in the county to locate a business the size of R.R. Donnelley - especially near Interstate 81 - said Brian Duncan, the county's assistant economic development director.
County Administrator Elmer Hodge assured residents that any talk of rezoning is preliminary.
"This was an early planning process," said Hodge. "These are not proposed rezonings. These are potential rezonings." Hodge said he would take residents' concerns to the Board of Supervisors.
Most of the potential sites for rezoning, if not all, probably will be dropped from the list, he said, "but that will be up to" the Board of Supervisors.
County Supervisor Spike Harrison, who represents the Catawba District, said he also is concerned that the potential industrial sites aren't compatible with surrounding residential areas.
Landis, who helped coordinate the meeting, said he hopes the Board of Supervisors will listen to the residents.
``If the county proceeds with this rezoning, however, this precedent will cause other adjacent residential land to be converted to commercial and industrial use,'' Landis said.
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