www.roanoke.com

For a while, every time Blacksburg Planning Chief Brandol Harvey looked at the Montgomery County School Board's plan for a new Bruins stadium, he found another zoning conundrum.

The last time the town had to worry about a stadium was in 1971, when the current ball field, named for legendary Blacksburg High School teacher and coach Bill Brown, was built.

Today, Blacksburg's zoning and building standards, which were written in the 1990s, don't discuss such facilities.

There is no place in town where the stadium's tall light towers would be allowed. So planning staff are working furiously to find ways to make town ordinances mesh with the project.

In October, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors agreed to buy 86 acres off Prices Fork Road for a new stadium and eventually a new high school for the town. But Blacksburg Town Council must approve the plan before it can go forward.

The stakes are high. If council rejects the plan, the county's $1.3 million land deal with developer Georgia Anne Snyder-Falkinham could fall through, leaving the school board without property for a future high school.

Officials estimate the current high school will be overcrowded in the next decade or so. And vacant land in Blacksburg promises to be rare in the coming years.

Disapproval would also delay another project that some officials want to soon resolve -- the fate of the old Blacksburg Middle School.

Current standards don't allow the 80- or 90-foot-high stadium light poles that school Facilities Director Dan Berenato says are needed to keep ambient light from bleeding into nearby neighborhoods such as Stroubles Mill.

There are concerns about the stadium's loudspeaker system and how it will affect homes nearby.

Does the school really need to build 1,000 new parking spaces for the 3,000-seat stadium? Or can some of the parking lots at Kipps Elementary and the new Blacksburg Middle School be counted toward the town's requirements?

Furthermore, the town wants to avoid any zoning changes that might open up loopholes that could cause problems with future commercial developments.

To resolve the zoning issues, town officials considered creating a special-use permit just for school stadiums and public parks and recreation fields.

But planners have jettisoned that idea in favor of an amendment to the rules which, if approved, will establish some specific guidelines for public recreation fields, Blacksburg Development Administrator Andrew Warren said Thursday.

The amendment has not yet been posted on the town's Web site. But the planning commission is scheduled to consider the idea at its January meeting, Warren said.

The stadium project faces other obstacles, including opposition from residents in Stroubles Mill and other subdivisions near the site.

The facility would likely be used for more than football games. A local soccer organization of more than 100 teams hopes to use the field and to eventually host regional tournaments there.

At a meeting last month, several Stroubles Mill residents expressed concerns about how increased traffic and noise from the project might affect their property values.

But others such as Larry Linkous, one of the project's closest neighbors, said he believes a stadium and a school are good uses for the property and will serve the community for years to come.

Linkous used to be a partial owner of the land, along with Snyder-Falkinham, but sold his interest some years ago.

George Morgan, who also lives near the project, said he has concerns. But he wants to work with the town and the school board.

After all, if the school plan is voted down, a builder might propose a development there that would be much less desirable to neighbors, Morgan said.

The school board will pay for the new stadium with $2 million left over from bonds for the county's courthouse renovation project, outgoing school board Chairwoman Tacy Newell-Foutz said.

County supervisors stipulated that the money be used on a Blacksburg stadium project.

The county's three other high schools already have new or recently refurbished stadiums, while the last major construction at the Bruins' field was done in the mid-1990s.

Blacksburg teams have continued to play on the field even though the old middle school to which it is attached closed in 2002.

Converting that old school and the 20 acres of prime downtown Blacksburg real estate it sits on into millions of dollars in school funding and new tax revenues is another motivation to move the stadium.

During the past two years, several developers have expressed interest in the site for residential and commercial uses, including one idea to build a 620,000-square-foot retail mall there.