ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 16, 1997 TAG: 9701160024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RINER
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Neighbors got their first look Tuesday at plans for a new golf course and residential development, a sizeable project that would change the face of this rapidly developing agricultural community.
About 80 people who crowded into the Riner Volunteer Fire Department listened attentively and unemotionally while Jon Altizer and two business partners told of transforming his dairy farm into a resort.
They said their goal is to build a quality 18-hole golf course, clubhouse, conference center and residential development eventually containing about 140 units. Access to the facility would be based on a combination of private memberships and public fees.
The 230-acre development's impact on its natural surroundings and neighbors would be minimized, said golf course designer Algie M. Pulley Jr. Plans are to "keep the land in its natural state as well as we can," he told the meeting.
If approved, the Auburn Hills Golf Club will develop gradually as a self-contained planned community, with minimal impacts on neighbors or public services, Pulley said.
The project began the initial round of the local governmental regulatory process Wednesday before the Montgomery County Planning Commission.
Members of the Planning Commission will review the proposal and, after a late winter or early spring public hearing, recommend to the county Board of Supervisors whether it should be approved or denied.
Then the supervisors will make the ultimate decision on the development's future.
Pulley said he hopes construction can begin in May, with the golf course open for play by June 1998.
Altizer started the hour-long presentation at a meeting of the Friends of Riner organization by emphasizing his connection to the community. He said he was a longtime member of the Riner Fire Department and invited the crowd to attend a Saturday night fund-raising oyster and turkey dinner for the organization.
"My son and I decided to get out of the dairy farming business," Altizer said. A self-described "avid golfer," he said plans for the golf course on his farm had been "a dream" for several years.
Altizer said he's withdrawn the property from an agricultural and forestal district, a land-use designation created to surrender certain development rights in return for tax breaks.
In 1995 he and and several others formed a corporation and hired Pulley, who designed the course. "We are ready to move forward," Altizer told the meeting.
Pulley, using a golf club as a pointer, indicated features on a map of the project while he compared Auburn Hills to other prominent regional golf courses at Wintergreen, the Greenbrier and Williamsburg.
Lifetime golfing memberships will be sold at the outset for about $15,000, he said. Thereafter, the course will be open to golfers who live in Auburn Hill's residential units and the public.
Pulley estimated green fees will be set at about $30-$40 per round. Those pay-for-play expenses will be higher for out-of-town guests at the resort and lower for Montgomery County residents, he added.
Although the golf course is the development's focus, housing and resort facilities are a crucial part of the plan. "It's difficult to finance a golf course on a stand-alone basis," Pulley said.
If the market cooperates, he said, Auburn Hills will have a total of 140 residential units, from town houses to "luxury villas." Pulley predicted they will be occupied by business people, retirees or younger couples, demographic groups that he said will not burden the local school system.
The center of the complex will be a country club, lodge and conference center for members and public use, he said.
Auburn Hills would have a single access road connecting to Virginia 8, the area's primary thoroughfare. Only emergency vehicles will be allowed to use narrow Five Points Road to reach the site, Pulley said.
The complex also will have an 18-acre parcel bordering Riner Road that Pulley said will be held in reserve for future options such as a park, lots for upscale homes or a "village center" commercial center.
It might also include tennis courts and a swimming pool in the future, Pulley said.
Auburn Hills will be served by a combination of fresh water from a nearby public line and on-site wells. Initially, septic and drain fields will handle wastewater from the facility. Irrigation water would be collected and treated on-site, then stored in reservoirs that would be part of the golf course's design.
If the the development grows up to a demand of 40,000 gallons per day, wastewater will have to be routed to a treatment facility.
The county says an expansion under way at the Riner-area sewage treatment plant won't be large enough to handle Auburn Hills' future needs, so the development may have to build its own treatment plant.
"The issue could constrain development," Pulley said.
Citizens who attended the meeting were a cross-section of modern Riner, a mixture of tobacco-chewing farmers wearing feed company caps and bib overalls, and university employees in tweed and corduroy.
They lined the walls of the Fire Department's community room and listened intently with their arms folded.
"I'm concerned about the aquifer," Howard Stanton told Pulley. "A lot of people out here depend on wells for water."
"I would like to see the golf course, but we have to look at all problems," he added.
Several others asked about the land-use changes other golf resorts designed by Pulley and his associate, G. Ashton Carlton Jr., had influenced.
"Surrounding land values increased," Pulley replied.
Deborah Mensh Robinson, who identified herself as a seven-year resident of Riner and a neighbor of the Altizers, said, "I can think of a lot worse neighbors to have than a golf course."
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