West Virginia daily

Bedford County's Board of Supervisors voted 4-2 Wednesday to reject allowing two proposed Smith Mountain Lake condominiums to exceed a 45-foot height limit required by zoning ordinance.

The developer, Waterway Properties, sought the permit to build two condominiums each 81½ feet high. The Waterwheel Condominiums would each be six stories tall with 15-foot gable roofs and would have 142 units between them.

Dozens of lake-area residents showed up at Wednesday's meeting to oppose the developer's request. Those who spoke against it said the taller buildings would ruin views of the lake and set a precedent for future development.

"When you let one builder, one developer do it, the rest will come right in," said Arthur Krauss, a resident of the Beechwood Shores neighborhood near where the proposed condominiums would be built.

Several zoning types known as "planned districts" come with 45-foot limits on building heights, a rule set last year. To exceed that limit, a developer now must seek a special permit from the Board of Supervisors.

Several proposed projects at Smith Mountain Lake call for 60-foot-tall buildings but will not require special permits because developers submitted plans before the height limit rule took effect.

Waterway Properties and the department had agreed on a plan. The developer would pay at least $50,000 to start a fundraising campaign to raise half of the cost of a ladder truck. It would cover the debt for the other half until more money came in.

Representatives of Waterway Properties, which is headed by T.D. Thornton, said Wednesday that the taller six-story buildings would be more aesthetically pleasing than shorter four-story buildings.

If the Waterwheel Condominiums were built to the 81½-foot design, they could be thinner from front to back, said Tom Calloway of Calloway, Johnson, Moore and West, the project's architectural firm.

"My definition of a beautiful county is open land, trees and green grass. It's not tall buildings," said Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger Cheek.

Stewartsville District Supervisor Dale Wheeler and Forest Supervisor Robert Bashore cast the two votes against rejecting the developers' request.

Also at Wednesday night's meeting, supervisors voted to approve nearly a dozen water and sewer projects, including installing miles of public water and sewer lines in Goode, the western part of U.S. 460 and Route 122 near Moneta.

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