ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701100050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
THE ENGINEER helped revitalize downtown, develop a thriving commercial district near Valley View, and create historic districts in Old Southwest and Gainsboro.
In December 1972, when John Bradshaw Jr. was first appointed to the Roanoke Planning Commission, nobody in his right mind walked the seedy downtown market late at night; some of Roanoke's oldest neighborhoods were deteriorating quickly; and tractor-size wheels of rolled hay dotted the broad fields of the Huff Farm off Hershberger Road.
By last month, when Bradshaw stepped down from the commission after 24 years of continuous service, it was apparent what a difference 21/2 decades can make.
Today, tourists and residents flock to the trendy City Market, which in 1995 was named one of the great public places in America; Roanoke boasts three historic preservation districts, which have helped stabilize existing neighborhoods; and Huff Farm is Valley View Mall, the linchpin of a regional shopping area that generates more than $400million in retail sales annually.
Bradshaw, 64, doesn't deserve all of the credit for those improvements, of course. But for 24 years - through several city managers, mayors and planning chiefs - his fingers have been in the pie of every major development, annexation, rezoning and other planning decision.
The retirement was involuntary, the result of an ordinance council adopted in the mid-1980s prohibiting anyone from serving on a single commission for more than three consecutive four-year terms.
"Perhaps someone out there in the community will see the example of this fine man, who is a very busy father, husband, and member of one of our largest architectural firms, Hayes Seay Mattern & Mattern. It's volunteer service, and he sets a great example for our citizens," Mayor David Bowers said during a moment at Monday's City Council meeting where Bradshaw was honored.
"John, we're going to find something for you to do," Councilman William White chimed in. "Don't think you're gone forever."
An engineer who rose through the ranks to his current position as chief executive officer of Hayes Seay Mattern & Mattern, Bradshaw developed a reputation on the Planning Commission as a nitpicker with a sharp mind, an even sharper tongue and an astonishing recall for past commission decisions.
The resident commission has no official power, but its advice to City Council on subjects such as zoning ordinances, rezoning and land use carry great weight.
During a typical public hearing on rezoning, he is likely to reel off chapter and verse on any previous attempted rezonings of the parcel in question, the commission's reasoning in deciding the issue and the conditions that were attached to it.
"He has a memory like an elephant," says Martha Franklin, a city planning staffer who serves as the commission's clerk. "He can remember everything about every piece of property for the last 24 years."
Bradshaw is rarely one to mince words, and he sometimes rubs people the wrong way. If he finds an idea idiotic, he'll say so.
"I've seen people who just love him to death, and others who think he's intolerable," says former Vice Mayor Bev Fitzpatrick, a Bradshaw friend who serves as executive director of the New Century Council.
If a lawyer representing a landowner before the commissioner was unprepared, he had better watch out for Bradshaw.
"He made you do your homework, I'll say that," says Ed Natt, a real estate attorney who has found himself answering many series of questions from Bradshaw during dozens of hearings on behalf of clients over the past 20 years.
Bradshaw also is anything but shy about publicly disagreeing with other commission members.
"John and I have vivid discussions," says Planning Commissioner Barbara Duerk, who has at times found herself at odds with Bradshaw.
On the other hand, Duerk credits Bradshaw with challenging city staffers' reasoning in failing to ask VDOT for bicycle lanes on the Brandon Avenue widening project. The staff reversed its position, and the lanes are being added.
A native of Norfolk, Bradshaw was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth.
The son of a prominent Tidewater dentist, he grew up down the street from a country club, attended a private boys prep school, then earned his bachelor's and a master's degrees in civil engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He accepted a job with Hayes Seay, which today has 425 employees in five states, and moved to Roanoke in 1962. One reason he has stayed is his wife, Matilda, whom he met shortly after moving here.
"She said she'd go anywhere as long as it wasn't more than five miles from home," Bradshaw joked.
He pleads guilty to being a member of the city's power elite, a label that has been used by politicians courting votes among the have-nots.
"Gee whiz! How can I say that I'm not?" he said. "I attend St. John's Episcopal Church, I'm a former president of the Kiwanis, I'm CEO of one of the top 20 firms in the city, and my wife belonged to the Junior League."
Bradshaw, who served a four-year stint as chairman of the commission from 1976 to 1980, is perhaps best known for a few planning points about which he's adamant.
One is that no public works project - no bridge, road, building or other structure - should be named for anybody living, no matter how important a contribution the person has made. Decisions like that can become too political, he's said.
Fitzpatrick disagrees. "I think you ought to be able to name things for people while they're still alive. That way, you can tell them how much you really appreciate them. He laughs at me when he sees me. He knows how I feel, and it isn't that we're any less of friends, it's just an honest disagreement."
Another pet peeve is inconsistently named roads. Bradshaw was partly successful in getting some renamed, such as Williamson Road, which used to have three or four different titles, depending on what part of the city it was in.
But other street names remain confusing, such as Brandon Avenue, which is also known as Lee Highway, Apperson Drive and McClanahan Street as it winds between Roanoke and Salem.
Bradshaw says the big wins for the city in his tenure on the commission include a revitalized downtown, a thriving commercial district near Valley View, and the creation of historic districts downtown, in Old Southwest and Gainsboro.
He says that he's never felt like he lost a battle, because even when council disagreed with the commission's advice, commissioners played a role in shaping the issue and helping people on opposite sides find compromise.
But there is lots of work that remains to be done, Bradshaw said. He cringes at the eroding housing stock in Southeast Roanoke, a once-thriving blue-collar community. And he notes the contrast with Vinton, where town officials are intolerant of run-down properties.
He says Roanoke lacks the spirited community-based leadership and "imaginative city government" that led to the creation of Downtown Roanoke Inc. in the late 1970s and early '80s, and the revamping of downtown.
And although he has found serving on the commission to be rewarding, he told council Monday that he harbors one regret:
"I see we are more interested in the city than the valley; we are more interested in the neighborhood than the city; we are more interested in ourselves than the neighborhood," Bradshaw said.
"And if we could only change that style of thinking for the citizens of the valley, we would have a lot more beautiful valley."
LENGTH: Long : 136 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: NHAT MEYER/Staff. City Council honors engineer Johnby CNBBradshaw Jr. for 24 years of service on the Roanoke Planning
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