Christiansburg's Planning Commission will meet at 4 pm on Monday. Their recommendations on agenda items are expected to be voted on by Town Council the following day. The commission's full agenda can be read here, and includes rezoning property to allow general business uses at 2880 Roanoke Road. The Public Hearing on this matter was held March 3, and adjacent property owners spoke about how development in this area has created stormwater run-off issues.
Rezoning in this area has been done piecemeal, reducing the standards that would be applied had the zoning changes been looked at comprehensively. So while legal requirements for erosion and sediment control and stormwater may have been addressed, these neighbors have already put council on notice of problems.
Two other items before the Planning Commission are relative to residential uses, one for rentals on First Street (adjacent to Dollar General) and another for property next to Wade's Supermarket on Roanoke Street. Presuming that either or both of these requests are approved by council on Tuesday -- and assuming these rental units would include school-aged children -- the potential to add more students into already overcrowded Christiansburg elementary schools will increase, too. Council just approved a boundary line adjustment near the new middle school, and approximately 150 new residential units are expected to be built within the next few years. Multiple other developments have also recently been approved, which are also adding hundreds of more homes -- so this school overcrowding will only continue to increase and should be expected to lead to the need for redistricting or building more schools.
The county Board of Supervisors and School Board have already completed their 2009-2010 budget proposals and, due to economic factors and reduced revenues, Montgomery County Public Schools will see larger classroom sizes. This means the pupil/teacher ratio will increase (yet is still below the state's standards and funding methodology).
The School Board meets the same night as Christiansburg's Town Council, and because all of that board's department heads are present during their meetings -- it means they cannot also be present at these Town Council meetings to fully address concerns about impacts. So even if the town doesn't increase their own real property tax rates, they contribute to the county's expenses and public education costs.
Rather than being fragmented -- from this government budget or that one, from multiple rezoning requests to a comprehensive view -- council needs to accept accountability for their decisions. Citizens need to connect the dots on how these actions affect quality of life, services provided plus both county and town tax rates.