ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997 TAG: 9703250119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN THE ROANOKE TIMES
A proposed golf resort in Riner should be approved, but only if Montgomery County's comprehensive plan is amended to place the community in a rural expansion area.
That recommendation, on a 5-3 vote Monday by the county's Planning Commission, will go to the Board of Supervisors. About 50 people attended a public hearing and 10 spoke.
Jon and Katy Altizer and other investors of Auburn Hills Golf Club want to build an 18-hole course, a clubhouse with a restaurant that will seat up to 200, an overnight lodge and up to 140 villas and homes on 215 acres of the Altizers' former dairy farm.
The golf course is the latest in a slew of development or proposals the Riner community has faced in the past five years as urban sprawl from Christiansburg creeps in and farms are subdivided for housing.
The golf course is appealing to some who have fought development because it's open, green space.
But the scores of homes and additional traffic on Virginia 8, and uncertainties over how water and sewer will be provided, leave others concerned that the project would open the door to development that clashes with the rural nature many in Riner want to preserve.
"I'm for the golf course but I'm against the development," said Charlie Bowles, a Riner resident and member of a citizens' group called Friends of Riner.
Bowles took issue with calling 110 housing units "villas." They're town houses, he said. Friends of Riner recently led a successful effort to keep 20 town houses out of Riner about a mile from the Altizers' property.
Jon Altizer said the golf course project was undertaken as a way to hold the land together after he decided to get out of the dairy business.
"Change is inevitable. Whether we like it or not, things are going to change," Altizer said. "As a former dairy farmer, change was constant. We had to contend with Mother Nature, low producer milk prices" and other things. "After 31 years of running the dairy farm ... it became quite a chore to me."
Altizer reminded the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission that "we're not asking for this whole project at one time, but it will be in phases."
Planning Commission member Joe Draper, a principal with the engineering firm that is helping to develop the project, abstained from the discussion and vote.
Kitty Brennan, Ed Green and Harry Neumann voted against the motion to approve. They wanted to table the vote for more information on how sewer will be provided for the project.
The golf course is designated rural/agricultural and the proposed development does not fit with the county's comprehensive plan.
The developers have asked to rezone the property from agricultural to Planned Unit Development - the first time that sort of zoning request has gone through the entire approval process.
The Planning Commission decided this month to ask the supervisors to schedule an April 28 public hearing on whether the comprehensive plan should be amended to place the golf resort in a rural expansion area.
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