Christiansburg's administrators have a busy week ahead, with three public meetings scheduled.
On Monday, April 6th, the Planning Commission will meet at 4pm to discuss a conditional use permit (CUP) to allow residential use in the B3 General Business District. The property, adjacent to Wades Supermarket and owned by the same folks, is located at 500 Roanoke Street and a public hearing was held March 17. An existing building could be converted from offices to residential, and the property should be expected to be subdivided for additional housing units at some point in the future.
Two rezoning requests will then be discussed, one for property at 20 Midway Plaza Drive (shifting from industrial to to B3 General Business) and another for property at 150-190 Pine Hollow Road, owned by David M. Linkous (from agricultural to R-1 Single Family). A second CUP request would allow Pathway Christian Academy to occupy the former Hill's Department Store. All three of these items are scheduled for April 7th Public Hearings.
Town Council will meet on Tuesday, April 7th at 7:30 pm, beginning with three Joint Public Hearings for the two aforementioned rezoning requests before the Planning Commission on Monday, as well as the academy's CUP. Council is expected to vote on the Wade CUP and will then hear results of the community survey conducted by the NRV MPO and Blacksburg Transit. Oddly, a speaker will be present relative to anti-bullying education -- since the town provides absolutely no funding for public education, one wonders why the speaker isn't instead before the county supervisors or heading to the school board meeting which usually meets at the same time a couple of blocks away. The Street Committee will report on two subdivision plats, one for 11 lots somewhere on Depot Street (tax parcel and address absent) and 37 new lots in Cambria Crossing on Roudabush Drive.
Speaking of the bus survey, word is that BT buses have been traveling through Christiansburg already, checking out potential expanded routes and time schedules. This assumes Christiansburg will play well with others, in the form of a financial contribution. This links in with Wednesday's meeting for the Finance Committee, which will begin at 3pm. Christiansburg has contributed to funding of the Smart Way bus service, running from Downtown Roanoke to Virginia Tech with two stops in Christiansburg and one at the Roanoke Regional Airport. The discussions so far indicate a dissatisfaction with how the town was coerced into providing any funding, no data to show that this has any benefit to or use by Christiansburg residents, and the potential to eliminate support to the tune of $8500. If not this year, then certainly next -- especially since this project was expected to become self-sustaining at some point. Expect the Smart Bus to continue, just the two Christiansburg stops to be dropped, perhaps?
The committee first saw $12 million in capital spending proposals, and at their second meeting this had been reduced to $10 million. Several vehicle purchases are apparently being delayed, with suggested reassignment of fleet vehicles viewed here. All suggested capital expenditures for the 2009-2010 budget year can be viewed here. Note that page two of this document includes funding requests by others, with new requests denoted in bold. Projected revenues can be viewed here. The four columns represent actual 2007-08 numbers, budgeted revenues for 2008-09 (current fiscal year), actual fiscal year-to-date revenue collections (July 1, 2008 through March 30, 2009 with April, May and June to be added as they become due), and projected revenue to budget for the next fiscal year (2009-10). The proposed appropriations -- what portion of revenues each department is being allocated -- is expected to change several times before the budget is adopted in late May or early June. These documents cannot be accessed via the town's website, so the Finance Committee meetings are interesting in that services, expenses and sources of tax revenues are all discussed in some detail.
A budget work session with all council members attending is expected to be scheduled during this meeting, along with setting a Public Hearing date sometime after the proposed budget is advertised. (Thus far, only Brad Stipes and Henry Showalter have not been in attendance at these meetings -- but only council members Ann Carter and Mike Barber are appointed to the committee.)