Continuing story: "....has found following a duly advertised Joint Public Hearing with Council that the public necessity, convenience, general welfare and good zoning practices (permit/do not permit)..."

Public necessity and convenience have been addressed previously. Now we will move on to general welfare.

This is where definitions get a bit tricky and doors are opened that encourage disagreement. How a person defines 'general welfare' comes down to how he/she actually defines each of those words individually and then puts them together.

The word 'general' (unless you are in the military) is likely to be defined as something along these lines:

• applying to all or most members of a category or group; "the general public"; "general assistance"; "a general rule"; "in general terms ...
• not specialized or limited to one class of things; "general studies"; "general knowledge"
• of national scope; "a general election"
• prevailing among and common to the general public; "the general discontent"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The word 'welfare' however offers a bit more of a challenge in coming up with a common definition. Based upon a person's upbringing, education, work history, and even hobbies, 'welfare' can be of a financial or a social focus.  (see wikipedia) I contend that with a Town, both of these MUST be assessed in detail and MUST be integrated in order to be effective. I further argue that these assessments must be not only of today and tomorrow's needs but in anticipation of the needs in the distant future as well.

Financial welfare of a town covers a wide variety of areas such as the money to provide water, sewer, garbage pickup, personnel, buildings, equipment, property, etc. Money coming into (oops) going out of the Town must be equal to or greater than money coming into the Town (fees, licenses, taxes, etc.). Those are things that are pretty easy to figure out.

It gets a bit more troublesome when you start to look at building things like an Aquatic Center which has a lot of unknowns. Now we are in the guessing with numbers stage. If we put X-million dollars into something will we be able to get back a minimum of X-million dollars, and when will we get it back? Just how sure can we be of the return on the investment? This is exactly why studies have to be done to see exactly what similar facilities do to generate funds and how much do they generate. What expenses do similar places have as a result of adding such a facility? How does the tax base of those areas compare to Christiansburg? How long was it before the center started paying for it self (if it has)? What types of problems did these other areas have with startup and operation of the facility? What would those localities have done differently if they were doing it today and knowing what they know now from their own experiences? Any time you spend money on something without knowing exactly what the return is, it is like gambling. If you are going to gamble, then make it as much of a sure thing as you possibly can by exploring all potential outcomes. (To see the Town Council Meeting Minutes pertaining to the Aquatic Center, check out this site.)

Setting that aside, now let us look at the social welfare issues that can arise with decisions made by the Planning Commission and/or Town Council. First and foremost is the question: How will the decision affect the quality of life of the citizens?

A good beginning for this would be to decide what Quality of Life means and/or WHO decides what quality of life means for the community. This should be what the average citizen considers quality of life. It should not be focused only on certain individuals or groups. How do you find this out? By talking and listening to a LOT of people. Also, survey forms can be helpful but should not be the single source of input. The survey form must be carefully constructed so that the meanings inherent in the questions/statements that are being responded to are phrased in the most common language structure possible. (Be patient a whole other blog is developing on Quality of Life.)

On the surface, it may appear that the rezoning of a property will only affect the neighboring property owners. NOT SO! Whenever there is a rezoning or conditional use permit, there are changes which have the potential to affect many citizens who do not own property in that vicinity. Take a case in where someone wants to change from single-family to multi-family zoning in an area. This may well meet some of the needs for affordable housing. However, this also means that more sewer and water hookups will be needed, more garbage will need to be collected, more traffic will be on the roads, more people will generally mean more noise in the neighborhood. Those people who choose to live there may or may not have children that need to go to school or need places to play in the neighborhood. If you increase the demands on already overcrowded schools for the sake of providing affordable housing, have you really helped the Town as a whole? Fire, Rescue, and Law Enforcement resources can quickly become overwhelmed when growth occurs unchecked.

GENERAL WELFARE of a community must go beyond the basic needs of food, water, and utilities. It must include features that provide for the psycho-social needs of people as well. Additionally, it must take into consideration the overall needs of citizens.

Remember that old story "Stone Soup"? Meeting the basic, minimal needs of people is like making soup out of stone and water. Not very tasty and not very nutritious. When you include the human element of community into that mix with a wide variety of the interests of many people, you come up with a colorful, flavorful, and healthy mix that all can enjoy. In our "stone soup" we need those extra ingredients of art, history, recreation, group activities, and participation with the process of governing to create the unique flavor that is Christiansburg.

Happy Father's Day! Give yourself a special gift and do something with your children that you all enjoy. Memories are a priceless gift that lasts forever.