Writer: Rezoning threatens environment
As a youth, growing up in West End on Wilton Avenue, I often biked with friends to College Lake to fish and swim. Later, as a student at Lynchburg College, I would go sit on the bank of the lake to study and just hang out. The “bottom,” as we called it then, at the end of Alleghany Avenue, was a wilderness in our young minds; a place to play and explore, and a shortcut on the way to West End School. We were there often camping and fishing in Blackwater Creek.
Things have changed. College Lake is no longer a place for kids to frequent, nor is Blackwater Creek anything like it was in years past.
These are my observations in areas that I have been familiar with over these many years.But it is happening all over the city. We are losing our precious flora and fauna by ever-increasing encroachments on our conservation areas, tearing apart large sections of forestation and polluting our waterways all over the city. Some even carve their initials into what was a pristine mountainside.
In the late 1990s, my wife and I contemplated moving into Sandusky from the county. At that time a developer was attempting to open a road from the cul-de-sac end of Rhonda Road (in Sandusky) up to what was known as “Rock Castle Dairy”; it is now where the Nationwide and other offices are. We decided not to buy until we found out whether this proposed road would go through, as we knew it would devalue all the property in Sandusky. It did not, so we have lived in Sandusky for 11 years.
Wednesday, at 4 p.m., a developer will request the zoning above Custer Drive, the edge of the Sandusky area, to be rezoned from a conservation area to “Limited Business District.”
Custer Drive is already in a flood zone, and these homes are seriously threatened by the ravages that will take place on the steep hill behind them. Again, a precious conservation area will be devastated. Burton Creek, flowing behind these homes, feeds into Blackwater Creek, as do Tomahawk and Dreaming creeks. This is already, prior to any further development, an environmentally-sensitive area.
Remember this: The impact of added run-off caused by these development projects is cumulative, hard to justify and can’t be reversed.
My hope is that all the residents of Lynchburg, and especially members and patrons of G.L.E.N., the Greater Lynchburg Environmental Network, realize what is happening and voice their concerns by phone call or in writing to your city councilmen and the mayor and vice mayor. Your support will also be welcome at City Council on Tuesday, March 9, at 7:30 p.m.
BEV JORDAN
Lynchburg
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