whats it like to live in roanoke or around smith mountain lake (Blacksburg: environment)

[tlcha]

I visited roanoke va. Seems nice. Is it a good place to raise kids? Is there any shopping or malls around or near smith mountain lake area? I hear thats a real nice area.

[seanpecor]

I live in the Boones Mill area of Franklin County, about 30 minutes from "SML" or Roanoke. SML is a very nice place if you like lake living. Shopping at SML is very much targeting the core market which currently is retirees and weekenders with lots of disposable income. As this target market grows, so too does the number of boutiques, upscale outlet stores and stores catering to new home owners (furniture stores, interior design, building materials, etc).

I'm not sure you'll ever see a Mall at SML in the conventional sense. I could be wrong. You're more likely to see a Mall in Rocky Mount, which is 15-20 minutes away from the Lake, and it is where there is substantial commercial development due to the overall growth of the county.

If you like a good mix of shopping in the form of malls, upscale boutique shops, everyday shops, movie theaters, and so on... I would highly recommend south Roanoke County. Great schools, neighborhoods with character, access to downtown and great shopping along Rt 419 and so on. North Roanoke County has a bigger mall but it lacks the flavor of the boutiques and locally owned restaurants that Rt 419 offers.

We live in the Boones Mill area, which is perhaps a bit too rural for your tastes, but it suits us perfectly. It's a drop dead gorgeous area. Here is a big webcam image from earlier today:



That 110 acre farm field down in the valley is being developed beginning now. I stopped by to pick up a Century 21 brochure on the community layout and I was pleasantly surprised to find that 17 of the 31 lots will be 5 acres a piece, and will allow horses. The most expensive lot is $130,000 or so. That's a pretty good price for 5 acres in a gorgeous setting, particularly in this area. One acre lots down in the bottomland will be about $40,000 a piece. The rumor mill indicated this 110 acre lot was going to be chopped up into 90 one acre lots so I'm pretty happy they shifted gears. We'd like more neighbors but 90 houses on that slope would be overkill.

Sean

[KewGee]

Every time I see the photos you post, I "drool." I think it's so sad that the lovely unspoiled land is going to be ruined by homes at all.

Anyway, I love this photo!!

[dunkhouse]

My sister lived in a very rural area near SML. That area of Virginia has beautiful scenery and a nice climate. I worked for a guy once who had just transferred from Roanoke and he really liked it as well. I also like the Charlottsville area.

[Atheena]

Originally Posted by tlcha

I visited roanoke va. Seems nice. Is it a good place to raise kids? Is there any shopping or malls around or near smith mountain lake area? I hear thats a real nice area.

We don't live in Roanke but we've visited quite a few times since we are also looking for a nice place to retire. If you like hilly mountains around, then Roanoke is the place for you with the cheapest tax and low cost of living. Smith Mountain Lake is a nice place, it's a community that has grown a lot over the years the area is so pretty with a golf course and nice and big houses but housing is way too expensive around the Lake. Nearby, the place is growing with more and more businesses being built right now. They do have small shops but no Malls yet, I think it would be too early for a Mall in SML???. They do have however two Big grocery stores now and some construction supply stores, like Baths, kitchen, tiles and stuff like that. When we were there a few years ago these big buildings and businesses never exist, we were quite surprised as how fast the area is growing when we visited back last year.

[roanoker 4]

Originally Posted by KewGee

Every time I see the photos you post, I "drool." I think it's so sad that the lovely unspoiled land is going to be ruined by homes at all.

Anyway, I love this photo!!

The beautiful unspoiled land in our area is rapidly being destroyed!! Unless citizens get involved we will see more WalMarts, intermodal rail yards, McMansions and fast food places.

[j1n]

Originally Posted by roanoker 4

The beautiful unspoiled land in our area is rapidly being destroyed!! Unless citizens get involved we will see more WalMarts, intermodal rail yards, McMansions and fast food places.

hey roanoker 4...
I agree with you, but unfortunately I think it's a done deal. VA isn't one of those places that seems to have a real passion for keeping vast areas of wilderness wild. Fortunately there are some small areas that are protected. But they are few and far between. Even great views from the AT and Skyline Drive are cluttered up with homes, power lines, cell towers, etc. It's a lot better than some other places; but still other places have really done it right.

[seanpecor]

I think it is completely unfair to characterize Virginia as a place that doesn't have a real passion for keeping vast areas of wilderness wild. Over 3.5 million acres of Virginia are in conservation. Virginia ranks #5 in THE COUNTRY for highest number of acres protected by land trusts. We're beat only by California, Maine, Colorado and Montana. Virginia is one of only few states - the other being Colorado as far as I know - that offers income tax incentives for entering land into conservation.

In defense of Franklin County and in the Blackwater district in particular, most new subdivisions are being situated on prior pasture land so the environmental impact has been mitigated. And Franklin County land is largely red clay, so lot sizes are highly dependent on the soil's ability to "perc". Hence, much of the land out here fails to perc promptly, so most newly parceled out lots are in fact 5 acres or larger. Moreover, you're really not seeing de-forestation at a level like you'd see in many areas of Colorado or Wyoming where everything percs so mega-subdivisions spring up so easily (and with questionable long term water availability). In fact, a typical 5 acre wooded lot in Franklin County stays wooded when a house is built. They're virtually undetectable during the summer, and minimally impede wildlife compared to urban sprawl.

Lake development is pretty intense but that's apparently pretty well managed if you read through zoning meetings and look over the lake association documents. People who live on the lake know what a precious resource it is and strive to protect it as best they can.

Of course, there is always more room for improvement. But I think we could do ALOT worse.

What other places have done it right? I'd really like to know. Because the only areas with massive amounts of unspoiled wilderness are in massive federal forests or park lands that aren't necessarily reflective of the regional culture surrounding those areas. Or they're in places where it's so challenging to live because of the weather (Alaska, Maine, the Desert) or because of a mixture of weather or poor agricultural soils.

Sean

[j1n]

I wasn't implying anything about regional culture impacting whether or not large areas are left wild and alone.
In places like upstate NY, WY, MT, CO, and UT, they have managed to keep large amounts of the countryside relatively (or very) undeveloped. Certainly, in any of those places, you can easily be in some backcountry without any signs of encroaching civilization. The Blue Ridge Parkway in VA? You can hardly pull over to pee in the woods without it being on someone's private property. There's more "wild" in some of the medians on I-95. The AT offers some great views of people's yards. Skyline Drive offers great views of towns in valleys. No real sweeping vistas here. I pulled off Burgess Rd...high point off 220... to take a picture a week or so ago. Great almost 270 degree view of the surrounding mountains...with a bunch of development in the foreground. View from the top of Cahas? Buildings in the foreground. Mill Mtn Star? Great overview of the city if you want to see what Roanoke looks like.
Smith Mtn Lake. I don't get it. It's planned flooding of forest valleys. It would be one thing if they put up the dam, flooded it, and kept it wild. But instead they are developing it to death and polluting it like crazy. There's so much oil and fuel leaked into that lake that there are visible oil slicks. But why keep it wild? Where would the northern transplant rich folks go to pretend they had a "lake house"?
Just my opinion of course. But I've seen how BLM lands and National Forests are handled out west...how they make it work. And I've seen how folks, in turn, have respect for those areas and feel priveleged to live in close proximity to them. Thats what makes me believe VA has lost the battle...if they were even fighting one to begin with.

[jahutch]

I think what j1n is referring to is 2 separate issues. The first is the amount of truly wild land in Virginia. No state in the east will ever have the kind of vast wildlands the west does. That's because by the time the idea of national parks and national forests came into being, states in the east already had towns and such all over. That is why, when you go into the Jefferson National Forest, you keep going through towns and seeing trailers. The National Forest was necessarily "overlaid" on top of the existing land uses. Thus, the existing towns continue, and are likely allowed at least some room for expansion, etc. Contrast that with the west, where by the time the population really took off, conservation was in people's mind. This allowed the feds to make huge swaths of totally undeveloped lands national forest, and keep them wild. You just won't find that in the east - the population is too dense, period. There is plenty of wild land, plenty of gorgeous land, but it is, generally speaking, not as "unbroken" as it is out west.

The second issue is land use controls. Virginia is a state that, like most southern states, favors free use of land. It tends to be pro-development in its policies. Conservation easements (as mentioned by seanpecor) provide a tool for *private* landowners to conserve their land, and that is encouraged, but the idea of the government stepping in and FORCING people to slow/stop development is something that is alien in Virginia - as it is everywhere in the south. Again, this is in contrast to states like California and Oregon, where localities wield a very big stick with land use and have strict controls on development. Many California towns go as far as they can without creating a "taking," while most Virginia towns seem to have an attitude of "build, build, build, bring on the tax dollars!" This results in typical suburban low density development (subdivisions, strip malls, walmarts, chain restaurants, etc) and not as much high density urban development.

One exception in this area is Blacksburg, which tends to control land use more strictly in its borders. Hence the continuing expansion of downtown Blacksburg and the vehement and ongoing court battle with a developer trying to put in a WalMart. Christiansburg by contrast is a more typical "bring on the taxes" locality.