A plan that could use tax-exempt bonds to kick-start a controversial development on Slate Hill in South Roanoke County is scheduled to get a public airing next month.

The county's board of supervisors held a work session Tuesday to receive proposal documents to create a community development authority for the project area.

A special public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. Aug. 10.

If the board approves the first reading of an ordinance to create the quasi-governmental authority that night, a vote on final approval would be scheduled for Aug. 24.

Developer James Smith wants to place retail space, restaurants, a hotel, condominiums and offices on the prominent 70-acre site in a project he is calling South Peak.

Smith has said he will invest at least $120 million in its first phase but insists he needs the proposed authority's clout to help finance infrastructure improvements on the now-bare hill.

The authority, if it is approved, would be able to issue bonds to finance public improvements. Those are scheduled to include more than $11 million in water and sewer lines, storm water management, a parking garage, sidewalks, streets and landscaping.

The bonds would be repaid over 20 years with new tax revenue generated by the development. The proposal before the board would give the authority 70 percent of all new local tax revenue generated in the project area, to be used to repay the bonds.

If those revenues were insufficient to make bond payments, the county would add a special assessment to the real estate taxes on properties inside the development to raise the money.

Although such authorities, called CDAs, have been used for years in faster-growing areas such as Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, this would be a first for Western Virginia. The idea is to allow localities to promote development without having to dip into existing general fund revenues to pay for improvements such as roads and water lines.

While the CDA's five-member board of directors would be appointed by the supervisors, the county would have no obligation to repay the bonds, should the developer default. The authority, not the developer, would hold title to all the public improvements.

The supervisors, county staff and Smith's company have been discussing the proposal for more than a year.

Some supervisors have questioned several aspects of the plan -- the length of the bond payoff, the size of the tax rebate and the use of such an authority to help create residential properties that typically do not generate as much tax revenue as it takes to provide services to them.

Although some of those issues and others were raised Tuesday, there was no indication how the board vote will turn out in August.

Even if the plan is approved in those votes, it would be several more months before any financing would be available while other steps -- including appointing the authority board and approving a specific bond-sale proposal -- are completed by the supervisors.