Terry Ellen Carter dubbed the dirt pile "Mount Woody" and even had T-shirts printed with a photograph of the word "Woodyville" superimposed on the pile.

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

A drainage pond is located near the large pile of dirt on land owned by developer Roger Woody just off Cambria Street. Woody has not submitted any building plans for the land.

JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

A cat walks past an overgrown mound of dirt left behind from construction on property owned by developer Roger Woody.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Residents of the town's most populated neighborhood say developer Roger Woody has succeeded in doing something they thought impossible for a mere mortal.

He has made a mountain.

A pile of dirt on land Woody owns just off Cambria Street across from The Farmhouse restaurant has been growing since January 2007, when the town approved grading plans for the 4.07-acre lot at Cambria Street and Providence Boulevard, along with another 2.22-acre lot at Cambria Street. Woody has not submitted any building plans for the land, currently zoned for limited business use, according to Randy Wingfield, the town's planning director and zoning administrator.

But the dirt pile is now a colossal heap, reaching toward the sky. It has been there so long it's covered with weeds and grass and has recently become a roosting place for a flock of turkey vultures.

Some of the residents of the neighborhood, where hundreds of town houses and single-family homes have been built in recent years, have expressed concern, dismay and even a bit of merry mockery.

"Mount Sinai?" Orange Leaf Court resident Judith Liberman joked when asked what she thinks about the mound, visible from her town house.

"I keep waiting for Moses to come down."

Liberman said she doesn't worry about the pile because "there are more important things for people to whine about." Others, however, have lost patience.

"I call it Mount Saint Providence," said Bonnie Simmons, a Providence Boulevard resident who said a recent visitor couldn't find her house because of the dirt pile. "You don't want to say, 'I live right beside the big pile of dirt.' It takes away from the appeal of the neighborhood."

"It's a huge dirt pile," agreed Samantha Devine, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech graduate student who lives closest to the grading site.

Devine said she thought the dirt pile looked bad when she bought her town house a year ago, but was assured the eyesore was temporary.

"The Realtor told me it should be going away as they built the place," she said, nodding toward the looming pile. "That clearly is not going away for a while."

No violation, no comment

Town officials say the pile could conceivably be there indefinitely because there is nothing in Christiansburg's code addressing time limits on removing debris from unfinished construction sites.

"As long as it's an ongoing construction site, it's going to be unsightly," acknowledged Todd Walters, the town's development coordinator.

Noting that Woody recently seeded the property and has met erosion control standards, Walters said the "mountain" in question is "basically a topsoil stockpile."

"We've had some inquiries about how long it will be there," Walters said. "I don't know right now how long it will be there. He hasn't submitted any plans for the lots yet."

What does the developer have to say about it? Not a lot.

Woody typically does not respond to questions from reporters regarding his business. His spokesman, Jim Wessel of Oak Tree Townhomes, said his employer was not interested in addressing complaints about the dirt pile.

"Roger has no comment on that story," he said earlier this week.

Woody, who owns Showcase Home Builders and Oak Tree Townhomes, is one of the valley's largest developers. According to the Montgomery County commissioner of revenue's real estate office, he owned approximately $46 million in county real estate as of September 2007. Walters said the developer currently has four active subdivision projects in Christiansburg, including the second phase of his Lions Gate multifamily residential subdivision off Cambria Street. Building has not yet begun on the 43 houses planned there.

"The timetable on start and finish of construction would be up to Mr. Woody, though he has not applied for any building permits for phase two yet," noted Wingfield.

Although Town Manager Lance Terpenny said he has fielded a few complaints from residents, he said Woody is not violating any codes with his dirt pile.

Terpenny won't go so far as to say the pile is unsightly.

"Unsightly is a subjective term," he said. "As a civil engineer, a stockpile of topsoil is a valuable resource. ... It's very difficult to regulate what some people think is attractive and what is unattractive."

Lynda Nelson, who rents out a town house on Providence Boulevard, said she complained to Terpenny about the pile more than a year ago.

Calling the site "dangerous as well as unsightly," Nelson said she has seen children playing on top of the pile. Other residents have reported seeing people trespassing, too.

Terpenny said he doesn't see supervision of the site as the town's role.

"I don't see that as a legitimate concern," he said. "They shouldn't be on Roger's property."

"I'm sure he doesn't want kids playing on that pile, but who's going to stop them?" asked Cedric Rudisill, who lives on Orange Leaf Court. "It's not just dirt. There's a lot of debris there, too."

Terry Ellen Carter -- who became one of the town's most vocal critics after a noise ordinance proposal failed following her complaints of construction din in the area last year -- said she is not surprised that the town has not put a time limit on the dirt pile.

"Woody is the town's cash cow," she said. "They're not going to make that cash cow do something it doesn't want to do."

It was Carter who dubbed the pile "Mount Woody" and even had T-shirts printed with a photograph of the word "Woodyville" superimposed on the pile. She modeled it after the famous sign perched atop Hollywood Hills.

She made the shirts for herself and a few others, but "they're not on the street, so to speak," she said.

"Mount Woody," she admitted, was a result of her frustration.

"I guess I'm just so sick of looking at it," she said. "You see it from everywhere. You see it from Kroger. It's the first thing you see when you turn from Franklin Street onto Cambria. It needs to be memorialized, I thought."

No deadline for removal

Carter and some others say they think the town dismisses their concerns while bending over backward to please developers.

Nelson said Terpenny told her the dirt pile "would be there for a long time" when she called his office, but Terpenny doesn't recall making that statement.

Several years ago, she said, she moved from Farmview Road where her family had lived for five generations because she was tired of smoke and dust from "constant burning and hauling of dirt" while Woody was building the Microtel Inn & Suites in the late '90s.

"It went on for over 10 years," she said. "It's terrible that our local government has shown so much disregard and disrespect -- rudeness -- for the citizens of the area. We pay the taxes."

Terpenny, however, points to the fact that developers do much to improve life in Christiansburg. When asked about some residents' speculation that he is "good friends" with Woody, the town manager said, "I'm good friends with just about every developer in town. We don't socialize together. I think he [Woody] has done a lot of good for the town of Christiansburg. He's provided homes for a lot of people who needed a place to live."

Terpenny said residents need to understand that plans change for developers, too.

"As the economic climate changes, business has to adapt and modify its course of action," he said, pointing out that an economic downturn can often stall a development project.

"As long as the sites are stabilized," Terpenny said of the Woody properties, "I don't know that it's appropriate to put a time frame on it."

Terpenny commented on another unsightly project that riled some residents recently. Woody's crews installed a drainage pipe from the grading site across the top of a pedestrian walkway in the neighborhood. With bright orange plastic fencing surrounding the pipe, the path is now blocked to foot traffic.

That's a temporary sediment basin installed during the grading process, Walters explained, noting that Woody will have to remove it when his construction project is finished.

"We won't let him leave it there," Terpenny said. "Temporary is not permanent."