Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

The wide-open spaces and bucolic views on places such as this farm are slowly disappearing in Botetourt County.

Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Morning commuter traffic along U.S. 220 near the Botetourt Commons shopping center continues to grow.

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The signs of growth are all around Garland Jones.

From the top of a grassy hill on his 97-acre cattle farm between Daleville and Fincastle, he can see it all.

His 100-year-old farmhouse faces the bustling U.S. 220 traffic corridor. Some say that stretch of the north-south connector between Interstate 81 and Fincastle is a four-lane highway disguised as a country road.

At the rear of Jones' farm is an Appalachian Power Co. electric substation, with enough power to light up homes in subdivisions off Country Club Road and a dozen more.

And off in the distance to the south stands a water tower poised to serve industries that Botetourt County officials hope to attract to the Botetourt Center at Greenfield.

Anyone living near Daleville can see the suburban growth that's spilling over from Roanoke and Roanoke County into Botetourt County.

At 73, Jones wants to close the barn door on farming and is selling most of his acreage.

"I'm getting too old to be sliding around out there in the mud and snow, moving hay," he said.

Jones wants to do what other farmers and apple growers have done: sell his land at top dollar to a developer.

But as more people come to Daleville, many who live there are wary of increased development.

"We have an expression that the next person who moves here wants to be the last one to move here," Botetourt County Administrator Jerry Burgess said. "Of course, that's not going to happen."

Greg Rieley, 44, whose family has owned land near Jones' farm for six generations, said he and dozens of his neighbors simply want firmer controls on growth.

"We just feel like the southern end of the county is being overdeveloped," he said. "Everything in Botetourt has got a price tag. It's a very sad thing."

Folks such as Jones and Rieley represent two mind-sets: those who say growth can't be stopped and want to take part in it, and those who want to preserve the kind of rural vistas that farmland along U.S. 220 offers.

"Botetourt and growth have almost become synonymous," said Steve Clinton, a Botetourt County supervisor who represents the Amsterdam District, where Daleville's growth is occurring.

Growing amenities

Botetourt County's population has grown just over 4 percent, or about 1,400 residents, over the past five years. That's manageable growth, county planners say.

But whether it's manageable in the future depends on whom you talk to.

For weeks, tractors have been grading the former 120-acre Layman Orchard on U.S. 220 to prepare for the Daleville Town Center.

The project, zoned a "Traditional Neighborhood District," will blend 300 residential housing units with 400,000 square feet of commercial space built over the next 10 years.

TNDs are becoming popular in Southwest Virginia.

Similar developments are going up outside Lynchburg and near Smith Mountain Lake in Bedford County.

The $120 million Daleville project will bring more people and another traffic light to what is already a heavily traveled section of U.S. 220.

And it could be a catalyst for more growth.

In January, the county's planning commission will review a request to rezone 42 acres on U.S. 220 across from the town center for a shopping center.

Virginia Department of Transportation statistics show that about 24,000 cars per day already travel the stretch of U.S. 220 from Catawba Road to nearby I-81.

Locals refer to the interchange at Exit 150 as "malfunction junction" because traffic backs up there in the mornings and afternoons. VDOT has said it has no money to fix the interchange anytime soon.

Adding to that traffic, the county will open the Botetourt Sports Complex next spring in the Greenfield Recreation Park near Daleville. The facility's four championship-size softball fields were patterned after Salem's Moyer Sports Complex. That facility annually brings in thousands of visitors and millions of tourist dollars to the region. Botetourt officials expect similar results.

Another indicator of growth in Daleville occurred this summer, when Kroger officials announced that the supermarket in the Botetourt Commons Shopping Center would be expanded by 26,000 square feet. The addition will make it one of the largest Kroger stores in the Roanoke Valley.

"With traffic and growth comes amenities," said Ray Sprinkle, a county native who's been selling real estate in Botetourt for about 20 years. "It's nice to be able to ... order a pizza and have it delivered to your home. We've never had that before."

Sprinkle said people are moving to Botetourt these days for different reasons than those who sought rural acreage and solitude years ago.

"When I first started selling real estate down here, everybody wanted 5 acres in Botetourt to build for their horse and for their privacy. And that's not what they want now. They want to be in a subdivision where there's lots of kids. And lots of social life for their children and for themselves," he said.

New arrivals are paying top dollar to live in subdivisions in the U.S. 220 corridor. Homes are fetching anywhere from a minimum of $300,000 to $400,000 in subdivisions like Sommersby, and $600,000 and up in the Ashley Plantation golf course community or down the road in Santillane near Fincastle.

Valuable property

A few miles north from the Daleville Town Center sits Jones' farm, on the corner of U.S. 220 and Country Club Road. Jones and developer Dale Wilkinson approached the county's board of supervisors recently about rezoning it for another TND. The Cornerstone at Greenfield development would blend homes with businesses and walking trails. It was to be marketed toward empty nesters and feature a Carilion health care facility.

But supervisors rejected the plan. They said it jumped the gun on the county's comprehensive plan by mixing businesses and multifamily housing outside Daleville's current boundaries for commercial and medium- to high-density growth.

"It was just out of sync with the current plans," Burgess said.

Rieley and dozens of his neighbors packed two public hearings to oppose the project.

"We're not objecting to the property being developed," Rieley said. "It's valuable property. But we just feel like the commercial area is just in the wrong place."

Other residents are concerned Daleville is becoming more like the congested areas they moved to Botetourt to escape.

Patricia Benavides and her husband, Joseph, moved to Daleville a year ago.

The couple left Smith Mountain Lake after six years because of the influx of strip malls and condos there.

They chose Botetourt because of its open land, the Kroger shopping center nearby and access to Roanoke.

"You do like to have certain facilities nearby, but you want to sort of keep the rural tone," she said. "And that's what makes Botetourt so beautiful, the mountains and the open land."

Despite the county's rejecting his rezoning request, Wilkinson ended up buying land from Jones anyway. He paid $700,000 for 50 acres, then shortly afterward sold 10 acres to Carilion for $850,000.

A Carilion spokesman said the company has no immediate plans for the property.

Any zoning change would need the supervisors' approval.

"Right now I'd have a hard time understanding the need for that in that location," Clinton said.

Wilkinson can build homes on 2.25-acre lots under the land's current zoning. But he wants to work with neighbors to create a project they can live with.

"We learned a valuable, valuable lesson and that is to get people involved in the process," Wilkinson said. "Let them have a voice in what that ultimately ends up being."

"Maybe for that particular location, it was a little premature," Sprinkle said. "But that's a valuable corner in the future for development."

Sprinkle lives off Country Club Road in the Sommersby subdivision. Homes there were built on farmland his family sold a decade ago.

Jones said selling his land to developers isn't any different from what others have done in the past.

"This is the thing that concerns me. People want to have a right to dispute something they don't own. Everybody wants to look at pasture fields and that sort of thing," he said. "Of course, they all moved into redeveloped farms and orchards."

Rieley said he and his neighbors would feel better if county officials could give them a better idea of the county's future growth patterns.

"I want to feel like I know what direction Botetourt is going in long after I'm dead and gone."

Responsible growth

While the supervisors unanimously approved the Daleville Town Center a year ago, county planners are taking a closer look at traditional neighborhood zoning and its effects on growth.

Burgess said he's seen firsthand how development has gotten out of control in areas such as Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. He'd like to avoid that in Botetourt.

"I don't agree with a lot of what some people call smart growth. I call it too dense," he said. "I think you can make that mistake."

County supervisors, he said, also want managed growth.

"Development patterns have to be based on the long-term good of the community, and that can mean disappointing people for the short term," Clinton said.

When people learn he's a Botetourt supervisor, the first thing they ask him is how the county is dealing with all the growth.

"It's my hope that we'll be able to answer that question in such a way that we're dealing with it responsibly and in a restrained manner," he said.