The Feb. 2 meeting will begin at 5 p.m. in the Craig County Courthouse. A public hearing on the proposed festival is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.

Young musicians Cory Slaydon and Dustin Lee of Deep Roots Productions, who live in the Bradshaw area of Roanoke County, are calling their planned May 18-19 festival the Happiness and Harmony Festival. It would feature blue grass, country and rock-and-roll music, they said.

A similar event the roommates sponsored on 76 acres of family land near Bradshaw a few years ago attracted 700 people, Lee said.

The Craig County Planning Commission considered the request and recommended supervisors approve it for the campground owned by the late Tony Reynolds near Craig County Mercantile and Lillie’s Deli, and Custer’s Trout Ponds, the county administrator’s office said. Reynolds’ daughter, Lisa Reynolds Caldwell, is the executor for the property.

The reason the festival that charges admission has to come before the supervisors is because it is not one of the uses provided for under the county’s Zoning Ordinance.

Slaydon said his and Lee’s earlier music get-togethers in Roanoke County did not charge admission. This time, the two plan to charge a total of $35 for both days, including camping. Proceeds would go to the Alzheimer’s Association, Slaydon said.

There would be an additional fee for the 20 campsites that have electricity, he added.

Music would start at 3 p.m. on Friday and 1 p.m. on Saturday, Lee said. Gates would open at 9 a.m. on May 18, Lee said.

Staff in the Craig County Administrator’s office said neighboring property owners have not expressed concerns over the music and arts festival, other than the possibility of noise. Slaydon said the cut-off time for performances would be midnight for the amplified stage and 3 a.m. at the smaller acoustic stage, on both Friday and Saturday night.

Also at the Feb. 2 meeting, supervisors are scheduled to consider:

• appointments to the Craig County Tourism Board;

• appointing a alternate member of the Community Policy and Management Team for Craig County Schools;

• a resolution amending the Fiscal Year 2011-12 budget for the schools’

• a resolution amending this fiscal year’s budget for attorney fees for bailout; and

• a resolution amending the county budget for the Craig County Circuit Court Clerk’s Office.

Supervisors are also expected to set a schedule to discuss the 2012-2013 budget.

A work session is scheduled at Thursday’s meeting with Gordon Jones of Robinson Farmer Cox to review the 2011 county audit.

In the evening portion of the meeting, a public hearing is scheduled to be held on:

a proposed ordinance to establish April 12 as the date by which applications to the Board of Equalization must be made by property owners or lessees for relief, and to establish May 15 as the deadline by which all applications must be finally disposed of by the Board of Equalization.

There are plans for signs saying “Welcome to the Village of Glenvar” – or maybe even “Fort Lewis” as the area was originally known – to be put up after widening of U.S. Rts. 11-460 is completed.

The green area stretching on both sides of West Main Street from the Salem line is the Glenvar Village overlay where mixed uses such as residential and commercial – such as a small grocery store, restaurants and professional offices – would be encouraged. Courtesy Roanoke Co. Planning

The village designation and recommendations for the way the main part of Glenvar could look in the next five to 20 years were unanimously endorsed by the Roanoke County Planning Commission’s four members present after a public hearing Nov. 14 at Glenvar Middle School.

Next the Glenvar Community Plan would go to the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors for a vote, expected in January 2012, to adopt to include the amendment into the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

The village area starts at the Roanoke County-Salem City line on West Main Street and includes both sides of the road, running to Technology Drive in the vicinity of where the former Glenvar train depot stood.

The center would be where the new Glenvar Library will be constructed, at the Fort Lewis Fire Department and road leading to Glenvar schools.

The new village designation is does not change zoning in the area but would be an overlay area to encourage mixed uses such as a small super market and restaurants, as well as keeping the residential nature, Planner II Amanda Micklow pointed out to the planning commission and citizens at Monday night’s public hearing.

“The Glenvar Village is a set of special restrictions overlaid on county regulations,” Micklow explained. “They would give more control over the aesthetics of new development, to be more in keeping with the brick construction of historic buildings in that area.”

She mentioned specifically Fort Lewis Baptist Church and Pleasant Grove, both built by Deyerle brothers in the 1800s, and on the national and state registers of historic landmarks.

If the board of supervisors adopts the Glenvar Community Plan, Glenvar would be one of the county’s only two village designations. Clearbrook is the other.

Micklow reassured business owners at the meeting that existing businesses are grandfathered in as they are, unless they ask for rezoning. She added that matching grant money is available for businesses that want to dress up their fronts and add landscaping.

Charles Whitt of Whitt Carpet which is near the proposed village’s Salem border was enthusiastic over the plan Monday night. “I like the village idea. I think it would be really nice,” he said.

The Glenvar Community Plan was developed over the past year-and-a-half and came out of ideas from citizens who attended three community meetings, and a 15-person Glenvar Focus Group that met regularly during the process.

The Glenvar Planning Area stretches west to east from the Montgomery County border to the City of Salem, and north to south from Fort Lewis Mountain to Poor Mountain. The area includes 31,744 acres in size and encompasses all or part of 5,081 parcels

During City Council’s meeting Monday night a letter that brought forth on behalf of Stan Seymour, owner of Bojangles’ on West Main Street, brought forth an appeal stating that “the site plan violates Salem zoning ordinances regarding parking, buffers, landscape, and setbacks among other matters.” 

Council had planned to consider a bond for erosion and sediment control for the proposed Chick-Fil-A site, but instead continued the matter pending the BZA outcome.

When an appeal is made State Code, not City Code, says that proceedings must immediately stop.  City council was forced to table the discussion to a later undetermined date as appeal effectively moved it over to the Board of Zoning Appeals.  The Board of Zoning Appeals is put together by the Circuit Court and is something that neither City Council nor the City of Salem put together.

Salem’s Director of Planning and Development, Melinda Payne maintains that “we are satisfied that we have done what we needed to do in review of the site plan” and that the plan was properly reviewed by the appropriate city personnel.  The Board of Zoning appeals will meet in the “near future” to review the plan and Mr. Seymour’s concerns.  A meeting date has not been set.

Council took a step forward to reassure residents nervous about business uses encroaching into their neighborhoods.

Council voted 4-0, with Council Member Jane Johnson absent, to change a section of the code pertaining to the Residential Business District zoning, and add a sub-section that would allow some commercial uses only with special exceptions.

Boulevard residents Cynthia and Frank Munley used this tree in front of their house to oppose Residential Business zoning changes. File photo by Meg Hibbert

Those are personal services, financial institutions, antique shops, day care centers, family day care in homes and multifamily residences.

The vote came after a public hearing where four people spoke, some of whom raised concerns before council voted unanimously in August to zone the entire 500 block of Boulevard to Residential Business.

It had been zoned residential, which, council and staff pointed out at the time, was an error because dentist G. Sprinkle’s office building had been located there for more than 20 years.

The RB change was made so that the professional office building would be a conforming use, as well as a house next door that attorney Richard Padgett wanted to turn back into his law office.

Changes approved on first reading Jan. 24 separate out portions of the city, particularly Boulevard and Union Street, “to try to protect the neighborhood character,” Salem City Manager Kevin Boggess told council.

Before this change the types of uses that will be special exceptions in the future were “by right” in the RB zone. Under the change applications for such businesses in RB will require planning commission review and Salem City Council approval, the city manager explained.

“We realize that barber shops and hair salons would have to go through these same processes as other businesses, and pay a $700 application fee,” Boggess said. “This is the price we pay to make sure” a type of businesses is evaluated.

Also under the new Section E, there can be no front-yard parking lots, and drive-thru businesses would not be allowed. Neither would small convenience stores, such as the Dilly-Dally market in the South Salem neighborhood, Boggess pointed out, which has already closed for other reasons.

Speakers at Monday night’s meeting were Boulevard residents Frank Munley and Cynthia Munley, North Broad Street resident Stella Reinhard and High Street resident David Robbins.

In August the Munleys led a movement to stop the Boulevard RB rezoning that starts across the side street from their house.

Although he said he believed zoning needs could have been met in other ways than RB, Frank Munley told council “They are very welcome, and are indeed a sense of relief for me.”

He added that “Residential Business is a bit of an oxymoron,” and asked council to consider completely eliminating that designation in the future.

Munley said he would rather see a new category of Professional Office, instead of general office use, and a revised zoning with the same RB initials – Retail Business, instead of Residential Business.

Reinhard said she wouldn’t want RB zoning in her historic neighborhood of North Broad Street, and accused council of “flipping” the whole block of Boulevard and a section of Union.

“The more you flip things to business, the more buildings will be torn down,” she said.

David Robbins, a former member of the Salem Planning Commission, complimented council, saying “I think you have done a good job moving as quickly as you have to bridge this gap…I think it is a good first step.”

Cynthia Munley spoke for 26 minutes against zoning changes and the comprehensive plan in general, with specific opposition to commercial threats to Union and Boulevard, “a quaint residential street and an historic Boulevard.”

Calling council’s August actions “a radical action” and “not a fair use of power,” she emphasized “Citizens should have been tapped for their ideas.”

Two minutes before she wrapped up her comments, Mayor Randy Foley interrupted Cynthia Munley, asking her to stay germane to the zoning change being considered.

“This is not pertinent,” he said, before she fired back that she was not being listened to and treated fairly.

Council voted 5-0 to deny a request by Valley Properties and L&M Properties to rezone four lots on Braxton and Harrison to make more employee parking and truck-loading docks in what used to be the Home Shopping Network building. The building has been vacant since 2005 when HSN moved that segment to Tennessee.

Braxton Heights neighborhood leader Gertrude Harris leans on her son, Dr. Wayne Harris, as she makes her case Monday night for Salem City Council to deny a zoning request that would have turned wooded lots, shown on the drawing behind them, into parking spaces for future tenants in the former Home Shopping Network building adjacent to their neighborhood. Photo by Meg Hibbert

Owners say they have three smaller firms that employ about 30 people now in the 540,000-square-foot building, and to be able to get other tenants, need to create parking next to another side of the building, along with truck loading docks.

Neighbors were concerned that if a lot that is now wooded is rezoned from residential to light manufacturing, the change would ruin their quiet neighborhood of Braxton Heights with noise from tractor trailers, light pollution and increased traffic.

The leader of the opposition was 86-year-old Gertrude Harris who spoke eloquently about how the character of the neighborhood could be lost. More than 35 other residents attended Monday night’s public hearing, with half a dozen of them speaking out against the rezoning proposal.

“We don’t want to lose our area,” she told council. “I love to sit on the front porch early in the morning with a newspaper or a magazine. My neighbor and I are able to talk from our porches.”

More cars and trucks would disturb the feeling of safety and security, Harris said. “This request would change everything.”

Others who spoke were householders Edward Hrinya and Dustin Cupp, Shermaine Greenhowe, Joanne Hale, Maxine Joiner Wright on behalf of her mother, Emily Whiteside, and Lewis Barker.

Barker and his father, George, own a rental house on Braxton that is not rented to college students, he pointed out, “And the reason we have been able to keep it filled is the advantage of a quiet neighborhood.” Barker added, “I feel like what’s in place is what’s best for the neighborhood.”

Council members asked if there were any plans for security for the complex, in response to neighbors’ concerns about more strangers coming into their area. John Lipscomb of L&M said Novozymes, which leases a portion of the building, has security, and when Hanover Direct was there, it had security, also.

Maryellen Goodlatte, the attorney for the developers, closed her appeal to council before the vote by saying,

“We recognize the neighbors are concerned. We tried to impose proffers to put limits on this development…so that the neighbors can co-exist.”

After the vote, Lipscomb approached Gertrude Harris to shake her hand.

Her son, who grew up on Braxton but moved to Roanoke when he was superintendent of Roanoke City Schools from 1993 to 2004, said, “This vote demonstrate again that Salem considers kids and citizens first. That’s why Salem is such a great place now.”

Council voted 5-0 to deny a request by Valley Properties and L&M Properties to rezone four lots on Braxton and Harrison to make more employee parking and truck-loading docks in what used to be the Home Shopping Network building. The building has been vacant since 2005 when HSN moved that segment to Tennessee.

Owners say they have three smaller firms that employ about 30 people now in the 540,000-square-foot building, and to be able to get other tenants, need to create parking next to another side of the building, along with truck loading docks.

Neighbors were concerned that if a lot that is now wooded is rezoned from residential to light manufacturing, the change would ruin their quiet neighborhood of Braxton Heights with noise from tractor trailers, light pollution and increased traffic.

The leader of the opposition was 86-year-old Gertrude Harris who spoke eloquently about how the character of the neighborhood could be lost. More than 35 other residents attended Monday night’s public hearing, with half a dozen of them speaking out against the rezoning proposal.

For complete coverage of Monday night’s meeting, see the full story in the Feb. 25 issue of the Salem Times-Register and here on our website at OurValley.org.

The decision was announced the afternoon of Feb. 4, after Salem City Council members met the day before with City Attorney Steve Yost in a closed session to be briefed on legal precedents.

Council was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the matter on Feb. 8, which will probably be postponed.

After the Salem Planning Commission recommended denial of CommUNITY Church’s zoning application for a building on Russell Drive, the church retained an attorney who notified the city federal law gives the church the right to use the property.

In a statement released Feb. 4, Council released a prepared statement that said “After a great deal of consultation and research, the City of Salem has determined that it is not in the city’s best interest to challenge a federal statute in an effort to keep CommUNITY Church from locating on Russell Drive and occupying a building situated in an area that is currently zoned business-commerce.

“…Although the City will not be rezoning the property as requested, it recognizes, in these unique circumstances, that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 takes priority.”

City leaders said part of their decision was the potential for a legal battle to be both lengthly and costly.

Now citizens from that area have an opportunity to determine what the 31,000 acres in the Glenvar community looks like in the future, county planners promise.

Glenvar resident Shirl Chittum and her son, Zachary, 8, look at maps of the Glenvar area before the Glenvar Community Meeting Jan. 11 at Glenvar Middle School. Photo by Meg Hibbert

Monday night, local residents had their first chance, at a community meeting for the Glenvar Community Plan that is expected to be prepared and adopted some time in the next year. It will be a guide for decisions about growth, development and how the area west of the Salem City Line to Montgomery County, south to Poor Mountain and north to Fort Lewis Mountain could look in the next five, 10 and 15 years.

About 120 people pored over a dozen maps showing current uses and future possibilities with blazes of yellow for existing residential, green for conservation, brown for rural village, purple for industrial, which ringed the Glenvar Middle School Auditorium.

Most of the people were middle age to older residents, with a sprinkling of developers, county officials, planning commission members. There was also Catawba District Supervisor Joe “Butch” Church, who represents the Glenvar area and who gave opening and closing remarks, and Roanoke County Administrator Clay Goodman, who didn’t talk.

Burned by past county government actions, a number of residents at the meeting were skeptical their ideas for the future of Glenvar would be heeded.

Shirl Chittum, who was looking at maps before the meeting with her son, 8-year-old Zachary who attends Glenvar Elementary School, was one of those.

“My mother, Elaine Trumbull, fought annexation when Salem tried to annex us, after my parents moved here in 1957. They (Roanoke County government) haven’t listened to anything we’ve ever said. The main problem was they sold us to the higher bidder,” Chittum said, mentioning the regional jail located farther out Main Street at Dixie Caverns, Spring Hollow Reservoir – “Which isn’t what they promised us from the get go. It was supposed to be a park. It’s not open to the public and you have to pay to use anything.”

Chittum was also steamed about the new $32-million multigenerational recreation center that opened Jan. 1 in North County and about which, she said, Roanoke County citizens knew nothing until it was under construction.

Others, such as contractor Sheldon Henderson of G&H construction, were optimistic that the community meeting and future talks would open communication between Glenvar residents and county decision makers.

“I appreciate that they’re paying attention to this end of the county,” he said. “I think Glenvar needs a little dressing. We need commercial growth, good commercial development, in this end of the county.”

Landowner David Shelor spoke out at the end of the meeting, asking for a “ground up instead of top down” input from a committee of citizens. He also asked Church and planners if the county had thought about buying up blighted property that is vacant and for sale, particularly along West Main Street. “I know the county spent a lot of money on a recreation center. We could buy and sell vacant property and make money,” Shelor said.

Others asked questions about how long four-laning of West Main Street would take – about two years, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation, with construction due to start by May, County Planner David Holladay said – and if landscaping and sidewalks could be added.

Sue Williams asked if the planned Intermodal rail-to-truck transfer yard across the Montgomery County line is expected to affect traffic. “Could we possibly end up being a big truck stop, big warehouse area?”

Robert Rector, interim administrator of Richfield Retirement Center, pointed out 750 people live on the 50-acre campus on West Main Street in Glenvar. “We’re probably more affected than any subdivision in Glenvar. I ask the Planning Commission not to forget we’ve got one of the largest retirement communities in Virginia; let Richfield be one of the players” in developing the Glenvar Community Plan.

He particularly emphasized air quality, and how decisions such as the former proposal for an asphalt plant almost next-door to Richfield – which the planning commission voted to recommend for approval but Adams Construction decided to move farther west, near Dixie Caverns – could have affected the health of residents.

“We’ve had people who have had to move because of the quality of air from an industry across the street,” he said, referring to creosote air emissions from Koppers, which creosotes railroad ties.

County staff said they plan to meet with individuals and groups between now and May to get more ideas, and come back with proposals for the future.

Meanwhile, a Glenvar Community Plan survey is available at the Glenvar Library and at the Roanoke County Administration Building, as well as online. Results from the survey will be tabulated and used in developing the community plan, planners promised.

The survey is also available online on the county’s website, roanokecountyva.gov.

Results will be made available on the Glenvar Community Plan website (http://tinyurl.com/GlenvarPlan), planners said.

Glenvar Community Plan is also on the county’s Facebook site and Twitter.

City Manager Kevin Boggess said today the potential delay of the request to rezone acreage zoned business-commerce to residential, which allows churches, was related to a letter sent last week by the church’s attorney, David Tenzer, to Salem City Attorney Steve Yost. Boggess said the letter outlined areas where Tenzer believed the city was in violation of federal guidelines.

“We need some additional time to digest what has been presented,” Boggess said. “What we don’t want to do is go through a public hearing tonight that may ultimately be affected by these legal arguments.”

While it appears tonight’s originally scheduled request request will be delayed until Feb. 8, Boggess pointed out it cannot officially be postponed until the item is presented at Monday night’s meeting at Andrew Lewis Middle School’s auditorium.

“We don’t want anybody to show up expecting there to be a public meeting,” Boggess said.