<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=31ylKO_1GvMJv9D00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=31ylKO_1GvMJv9D00" width="700" height="394" >ELLISTON, Va. – A proposed housing development near Eastern Montgomery Elementary School could more than double the population of Elliston, and residents are far from agreed on whether that’s a good thing.The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors will hold a second public hearing on the project Nov. 10 at 7:15 p.m. at the Montgomery County Government Center in Christiansburg. The do-over comes after an error advertising the Oct. 13 meeting required the county to reschedule. The first hearing drew more than 30 speakers and ran nearly until midnight.<h2>What’s being proposed</h2>The development would bring approximately 350 new homes to a roughly 260- to 275-acre section of a historic farm in the Elliston area of eastern Montgomery County. Elliston currently has just over 800 residents, meaning the project — if fully built out — could add close to 1,000 people to the community, more than doubling its population.Supporters say the area needs exactly that kind of growth. Opponents say the scale is wrong for a rural village.<h2>The case for the development</h2>Allen Childress, a Shawsville resident who supports the project, said the first public hearing showed how deeply the community cares about its future — regardless of which side people stood on.“It was a great turnout on both sides,” Childress said. “I really respected the amount of people that came out from both sides and really appreciated everybody’s arguments.”Childress said a presentation at the hearing addressed his concerns about stormwater management, traffic flow and other infrastructure questions.“The presentation that was provided answered all those questions,” he said. “And I think it proved that this housing development is a really viable and necessary option to see our area grow.”For Childress, population decline is the core issue. He pointed to declining enrollment across Eastmont-area schools, noting each sits at roughly half capacity.“How can you propose to build a new school or improve a school that’s half full?” he said. “That just doesn’t make sense from a fiscal standpoint.”He also cited the loss of businesses — grocery stores, banks, hardware stores, retirement homes — as a direct result of the area losing residents.“You can’t have a bank, have a restaurant, have a grocery store without people,” Childress said. “You have to have the people first to then support all these local businesses.”On concerns about adding a thousand people overnight, Childress pushed back on that framing.“We’re talking like a five to eight year build out in a perfect world,” he said. “You’re talking closer to a decade of that many people coming into the area. It’s not like it’s a snap of a finger.”Donald Phillips, an Elliston resident who also supports the development, said the community’s slide has been visible for years.“It’s gone downhill for the last few years because kids get up to a certain age and there’s nothing else for them and there’s no new families moving in,” Phillips said. “So a lot of businesses have closed and families won’t come in.”Phillips described the proposed site as one of the few viable parcels for development in the area and said the schools were built with growth in mind.“The middle school and the elementary and the high school were all done with the intent of adding people,” he said. “So there’s plenty of room there for growth.”He also noted the area’s geographic position as a selling point for potential residents.“This area right here is kind of a crossroads between Roanoke and Blacksburg,” Phillips said. “There’s a lot of commuting in between and there’s a lot of folks here that work in those areas.”<h2>The case against</h2>Josh Williams, a Shawsville resident opposed to the project, questioned the fundamental scale of what’s being proposed.“Why would you take a development that’s appropriate for Blacksburg, a town of 40,000, and drop it in Elliston, a town of 800?” Williams said. “It’s totally inappropriate growth.”Williams also challenged the assumption that new homes automatically translate to new families and school enrollment. He noted that since 2020, developers have built 467 homes across Montgomery County — and the county’s population has still dropped by roughly 1,000 people.“Families with kids are not buying these homes, are not moving to Montgomery County,” Williams said. “Folks buying second homes or investment properties seem to be what’s gobbling up the homes.”School enrollment has dropped by 300 students since 2020, he added, making it hard to project that 350 new homes would reverse that trend.Williams also raised concerns about the development’s compatibility with Montgomery County’s own comprehensive plan, which he said calls for small, sustainable growth in villages and the preservation of farmland.“This is literally the opposite of that,” he said.On housing costs, Williams said the numbers don’t add up for existing residents. The average home value in the Elliston-Eastmont area is around $250,000, he said — about $100,000 below the Montgomery County average. Townhouses in the proposed development start at $285,000, with single-family homes starting around $385,000.“By the time the thing is built out, they’re going to be well over $300,000” for townhouses, Williams said, “and well over $400,000” for single-family homes.His wife Paige Williams, also a Shawsville resident and a local realtor, said the community isn’t anti-development — but it is opposed to this specific proposal.“Many of the residents of Shawsville and Elliston are not opposed to development,” she said. “But what we are opposed to is the wrong kind of development in the wrong place.”Paige Williams said the buyers she works with are specifically seeking rural character — land, space and distance from neighbors.“When people want to move here, they’re looking for land,” she said. “They want some space. They want some privacy. And they don’t want to live right on top of each other.”She also raised concerns about affordability for lower-income residents, particularly those living in mobile home communities.“Many of our community live in trailer parks, and a $400,000 home is not affordable,” Paige Williams said. “When you look at increased property values, you’re looking at increased taxes, which means lot rents on the mobile home communities goes up, which means we may actually have displaced persons because of this development.”More than 100 residents showed up at the first Board of Supervisors meeting to support the “Preserve Eastmont” effort, she said, and organizers are hoping for an even larger turnout Nov. 10.Despite their disagreements, residents on both sides said they share a genuine investment in the community’s future.“So many people care about the area that we live in and this small town,” Childress said.“The people in this community really love this community,” Paige Williams echoed.The Nov. 10 public hearing begins at 7:15 p.m. at the Montgomery County Government Center in Christiansburg. Based on the length of the first hearing, another late night is expected.</div></body>

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ELLISTON, Va. – A proposed housing development near Eastern Montgomery Elementary School could more than double the population of Elliston, and residents are far from agreed on whether that’s a good thing. The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors will hold a second public hearing on the project Nov....

Elliston housing development faces second public hearing as community remains divided

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