ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060042
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
An effort to build a low-income housing development on Merrimac Road has run smack into the utility conundrum between Blacksburg and Montgomery County.
VMH Inc., a nonprofit housing development corporation, wants to build a 30- to 34-unit neighborhood on 21 acres it owns off Merrimac Road.
The project is designed to serve the need for affordable housing in Montgomery County. VMH, formerly Virginia Mountain Housing, has a waiting list of 121 low-income home seekers, said Cynthia Schoolfield, program manager for single-family housing.
To develop the site using a high-density, cluster concept, VMH needs access to water and sewer service. The sewer can be obtained through the Blacksburg-VPI Sanitation Authority without controversy.
But VMH's plans, more than two years in the working, last week ran into two political speedbumps related to water service:
Montgomery County's and Blacksburg's inability to agree on how areas just outside town boundaries, like the Merrimac site, will be served with utilities despite a year of negotiations;
The concerns of Blacksburg for the future development of Price Mountain, given that a developer has filed big plans for the land south of the VMH site, and any water service upgrades for the Merrimac project could potentially serve Price Mountain.
The utility issue comes down to this: Montgomery County wants utility service for certain of these outlying areas, but doesn't want to give up any control over land-use planning; Blacksburg has the utility systems, but wants to guide or at least have input on land-use decisions related to their expansions.
The issue is so touchy that a Montgomery County Board of Supervisors member, Ira Long, lectured Schoolfield at a Feb. 26 briefing when she said the Montgomery Public Service Authority had declined to serve the project with public water.
Schoolfield had based her comment on a Jan. 24 letter from Montgomery County that said water service could not be provided unless an agreement can be reached for service between the town and county.
Long said later that if the PSA was to serve the VMH project, it would need Blacksburg's OK to extend its line farther down Merrimac Road; contrarily, if Blacksburg wanted to extend its water service to the site, it would need the county's approval.
Schoolfield and Bob Rogers with Architectural Alternatives Inc., of Blacksburg, briefed the Board of Supervisors on the project last week because initial plans call for grading, roads and utilities to be paid for through a federal grant that requires the county's support. And eventually, the project will require a rezoning from the county to go forward.
VMH plans to develop the homes at the Merrimac site through private financing or a Kentucky housing group that provides below-market rates. VMH would take care of qualifying potential home buyers for the loans, Schoolfield said. The owner-occupied homes would run in the $53,000 to $58,000 range.
For now, the project is at least a year off in the future because of the utility issue and because VMH is not ready to apply for the federal funds through a community development block grant.
Adele Schirmer, Blacksburg's director of planning and engineering, said one solution to VMH's dilemma would be for the corporation to apply to Town Council to become part of the town's water system.
But the larger utility question goes back to negotiations between the town and county that have been ongoing since the demise of the Patton's Grant retirement community proposal a year ago.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: map showing low-income housing development projectby CNBlocation color STAFF