Sunday, November 22, 2009
Editorial: The Old Blacksburg Middle School
Town and county remain stalled on the future of the site.
From the RoundTable blog
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The Montgomery County School Board wisely chose to bow out of the tangled thicket that is the Old Blacksburg Middle School. That leaves the county board of supervisors and Blacksburg Town Council to duke it out over what will become of the property.
The school has been vacant for years. It is falling apart and repairs would be costly. Nevertheless, it sits on valuable acreage at the south end of downtown Blacksburg and fuels dreams of dollar signs for developers and county supervisors.
All along, the school system was supposed to surplus the land, turning it over to the county. The county, in turn, would sell the land to recoup some of the money it spent acquiring property for schools.
This is where it gets complicated. The county wants the maximum sales price, but the land is not zoned for maximum development. Only the town can change the zoning, and town council does not want heavy development. It does not know what it wants -- there are as many ideas as there are council members -- but there is a general sense that it should be something less intense and preferably mixed-use that could provide a buffer between downtown and residential neighborhoods.
More than a year ago, town and county leaders talked about a design competition to see what might be possible to satisfy both sides. It never happened, and the conversation has since stalled.
Both sides have legitimate concerns. Supervisors want to be good stewards of public resources. Council members want to protect the character of their community. Ultimately, though, the town has the better of the argument.
Nevertheless, both sides probably must budge if anything is ever to happen with the old middle school.
For example, some town residents -- and perhaps some council members -- think the county should just hand over the land to Blacksburg for public use. Town residents are county taxpayers, the reasoning goes. Why shouldn't they benefit from a county resource?
They should benefit, but they are not the only county taxpayers with a stake in the property. It belongs to residents of Elliston, Christiansburg, McCoy and the rest of the county, too. If the town wanted to buy the land at a fair -- maybe even discounted -- price, it would be one thing. Expecting everyone else to hand over a valuable resource to Blacksburg without compensation is not reasonable.
Likewise, the county should not expect to squeeze every cent out of the land without regard for what it would do to Blacksburg. Town residents are county residents, too, and deserve some consideration from supervisors.
The design competition remains a promising avenue forward that could bring forth smart development for the town and profit for the county. Now that the school board has gotten out of the way, it is time to resume that conversation in earnest. Vacant land and a deteriorating school building serve no one.
