ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on August 29, 1996.
The proposed Silvanway Apartments project would be on a 4.25-acre
tract in Pulaski County. It would open up a 16-acre drainage area, which
concerns neighboring landowners. The acreage of the apartment complex
was incorrectly reported in Wednesday's New River Current.
Developers of a proposed 60-unit apartment project have 30 days to ease the concerns of nearby landowners over water drainage before Pulaski County decides whether to let it proceed.
The Pulaski County Planning Commission earlier this month approved the Silvanway Apartments project on a 16-acre tract east of Belspring Road (Virginia 60) in the Cloyd District. Neighboring property owners Billy J. and Glenna W. Watson have appealed that decision to the county Board of Supervisors.
The matter had been before the Planning Commission for about nine months.
Billy Watson told the supervisors Monday night he is worried about contaminants coming off the property with the water, and so are other neighbors. "My cattle are going to have to eat all this oil, anti-freeze and chemicals," said A.W. Hedge.
Developer Mark Wiley and Radford attorney Clifford Harrison, representing the neighboring property owners, offered conflicting engineering data on the project's potential effects. Water runoff will be collected temporarily into a pond, and then be released so that it will run across the Watson property and others.
Ray Varney of Anderson & Associates designed the system, but said the runoff would not damage the neighbors because the water, even though there would be more of it, would be discharged slowly.
"It's the speed and velocity that the water comes off the property that produces the erosion potential," Varney said. "I'm saying there's going to be a larger volume, but I'm saying it's going to be at a slower rate."
"His system will not control sediment disposition," said engineer Christopher Swan, representing the property owners. "This increased volume and frequency could change soil properties and result in damage."
"The pond will in fact allow settlement out on the site," Varney said.
"It seems to me that engineers and lawyers have probably made more out of this than anybody else," said Supervisor Jerry White. "Either somebody is not telling the whole story or somebody does not know what he's talking about."
Board Chairman Joe Sheffey urged the two sides to try to negotiate a settlement, perhaps an easement across the neighboring property. Wiley said he is willing to negotiate up to the point where conditions being asked of him would make the project unaffordable. "If we reach the point where I can't make a living off of it, there's no reason to build it," he said.
If no settlement is reached by the board's next meeting on Sept. 23, the governing body will decide whether to kill the project or allow it to proceed.
An earlier controversy involving neighbors around a quarry operation off Wilderness Road (Virginia 611) in the Ingles District was settled when the board had County Attorney Tom McCarthy mediate a compromise between the two sides.
The board approved a conditional-use permit Monday allowing the quarry to expand its operations, under conditions worked out between the quarry owners and neighbors governing such things as blasting and traffic. The board also passed a motion by Supervisor Bruce Fariss asking state transportation officials to look into providing industrial access funds for a road into the quarry to take some of the traffic off Virginia 611.
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