ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609130066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
A Washington D.C.-based company that operates halfway houses for ex-convicts might challenge a Board of Zoning Appeals decision barring the company from building at a Melrose Avenue site.
By a 5-0 vote that brought applause from dozens of Northwest residents on Tuesday, the board denied Washington Halfway Homes Inc.'s bid for a special exception and variance. The company wants to build a halfway house in a vacant lot on Melrose between Fentress and Adams streets. The Trudie Wallace House would serve 20 nonviolent federal convicts.
The Board's decision came after a two-hour hearing in which residents and company officials offered contrasting predictions of how the facility would affect the Edgewood-Morwanda-Summit Hills area.
After the hearing, Washington Halfway Homes Executive Director Loretta Thompson said she would consult her board of directors on whether to fight the Board of Zoning Appeals' decision in Circuit Court. The company has 30 days to file an appeal.
Washington Halfway Homes also might reconsider other sites in the Roanoke Valley, Thompson said.
The Melrose Avenue property, about 1.5 acres, is zoned for commercial use. That designation allows for halfway houses, but it requires a special exception from the Board of Zoning appeals.
The company also needs a variance because the proposed facility is within 1,500 feet of another group home. The latter serves developmentally disabled people and is run by Blue Ridge Community Services. The board unanimously denied both the special exception and the variance.
An artist's rendering of the proposed halfway house looks like a large, $400,000 house that might be seen in an upper-income subdivision such as Hunting Hills in southwest Roanoke County. Thompson argued it would a be an attractive addition to the community and improve property values in the neighborhood.
The halfway house would be surrounded by trees and a 6-foot fence, and would include a basketball court, kitchen and counseling facility for the 16 men and four women the federal Bureau of Prisons wants to house there, Thompson said.
Only people convicted of nonviolent crimes such as embezzlement, fraud or drug trafficking would be housed there, she said. The company provides drug and alcohol counseling for the small number who would need it.
"Our role is to nurture and prepare our residents to become and remain good citizens," Thompson told the board. "When they return to the Roanoke community, you'll find that they can live and maintain legal lifestyles."
More than a dozen nearby residents spoke against the halfway house at the hearing. Their concerns focused on neighborhood safety and the effect the halfway house would have on their property values. They presented a petition, signed by 1,200 neighborhood residents and businesspeople, against the special exception and variance.
Aside from hundreds of homes in the far northwest corner of the city, the neighborhood was once a thriving commercial center that included car dealers, major department stores, fast food outlets and at least one large hardware store.
Most of those businesses have moved out in the last 20 years. Many of them were from the Roanoke-Salem Plaza, which once housed department stores such as Leggett and Miller & Rhoads. The plaza, slated for redevelopment, is nearly half vacant.
But the Peters Creek Road extension under construction by the Virginia Department of Transportation is bringing with it hope that the community might be revived.
Dennis Cronk, a Realtor who owns property in the area, said the neighborhood has seen a resurgence of pride in the last 10 years.
"I would hate to see anything injure that pride," he said. But the halfway house would "create a [negative] impact on property values," he said.
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