JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

The council voted down a plan Monday night to acquire .026 acres to build a road connecting Park Road and Tyler Avenue. The land in question is shown through the woods to the right of this apartment complex.

Editor's note: Radford City Council voted Monday night not to attempt to purchase .026 acres, or one-fortieth of an acre, from Cedar Valley LLC to improve development between Park Road and Tyler Avenue. This information was incorrect in a story and caption in Wednesday’s Current.

RADFORD -- Radford City Council voted down a resolution Monday night to acquire land for a proposed connector road, leaving the future of a proposed 208-acre development in question.

The council voted down a plan Monday night to acquire .026 acres, or one-fortieth of an acre, using eminent domain. The land would have been used to build a road connecting Park Road and Tyler Avenue and is a key piece in the residential and commercial development planned by Management Services Corp. of Charlottesville.

Councilmen Dick Harshberger and Bob Nicholson and Mayor Tom Starnes voted against the resolution. Laurie Buchwald and Bruce Brown voted in favor of it.

Starnes is being challenged by Brown for the mayor's seat in the May 4 election.

The land in question is part of Cedar Valley LLC, an apartment complex owned by Bondurant Development Co. The city had offered Cedar Valley $70,000 for the property in November, which Bondurant Development Company neither accepted nor declined. The offer was based on an appraised property value of $51,300.

Calls to Bondurant Development were not returned Tuesday.

Previously, Hix Bondurant, president of Bondurant Development, said the price for the land was fair but the quality of life at Cedar Valley was in question, not the value of the land.

"The core of this project paid respect to the city's comprehensive and transit plans, and the connector road has been a long-planned part of that," Trey Steigman, vice president of development for Management Services Corporation, said Tuesday.

Steigman said it was unclear what the future of the development and the site, commonly known as the Turner property, would be after the council's vote.

"It changes our entire approach," he said. "The connector road was a major piece of the plan."

According to plans from MSC, development would include about 448 apartments, 128 townhouses, 169 single-family homes, more than 17 acres of "retail, food service, office, lodging, entertainment" and more than 13 acres of unspecified public use space.

Steigman said he was disappointed by the "misrepresentations of the development," mainly that its apartment housing would be geared toward Radford University students.

Buchwald expressed disappointment Monday night with the mindset that only students live in apartments, saying that as a single mother working her way through graduate school, she lived in apartments for many years before buying a home.

"We need to change this perception ... of viewing citizens who live in apartments as less than citizens," she said.

In a prepared statement, Harshberger said using eminent domain powers are sometimes "absolutely necessary ... I just don't think this is one of those times we should use eminent domain."

Once the city has acquired the land, Harshberger said, officials have made an informal agreement to build the first portion of the connector road, a $2 million expense the city has not budgeted for.

"It's more complicated than a strip of land," Nicholson said. "You have to balance the impact to joining or future property with future growth."

In 2006, the council voted to allow rezoning at the site of the proposed development.

In other action:

n The council voted to approve a cable franchise agreement with JetBroadband contingent on the company being up-to-date on its monthly payments to the city by Friday. JetBroadband owes the city $19,608 from 2009, said Chelista Linkous, assistant finance director.

In August, the city discussed cutting the contract with JetBroadband because of the company's $53,000 debt to the city, which has since been paid, and the lack of a pole-attachment agreement. The pole-attachment fee, which cable companies pay localities for use of existing utility poles, will remain $12 per pole this year, increase to $14 per pole in 2011 and increase $1 per pole per year through 2015, according to documents presented at the meeting.

n The council announced public presentations of the 2010-11 budget. Work sessions will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday and 6:30 p.m. March 18 at the Radford Recreation Center, 200 George St., and at 6 p.m. March 22 in the Municipal Building, 619 Second St. A public hearing will follow at 7:30 p.m. during council's regular meeting.