FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. -- Seventeen employees who worked for the largest housing development project proposed for the New River Gorge have lost their jobs and the local office for Roaring River has closed, the president of the Fayette County Commission said Saturday.
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. -- Seventeen employees who worked for the largest housing development project proposed for the New River Gorge have lost their jobs and the local office for Roaring River has closed, the president of the Fayette County Commission said Saturday.
But Commission President Ken Eskew said he believes the company will continue to work on phase one of its three-phase project.
Eskew said, "They [Roaring River] got caught up in this economic downturn from the housing market collapse. They had to cut back some. But they are going forward with phase one."
The company's office on U.S. 19 in Fayetteville was closed on Friday. Callers to the company's local number heard a busy signal.
Roaring River employees did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
Information about Roaring River is also apparently missing on the Internet. When computer users try to access the development's Web site, they receive an error message.
Tom Wagner, former general manager for Roaring River, as well as officials at the Atlanta headquarters of parent company Land Resources Companies did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Wender said Saturday he had personal knowledge of the Roaring River office closing. But he added that company officials have not formally notified the county commission of the closing.
Roaring River employees needed approval from the Fayette County Commission for zoning changes that allowed them to start their project. Wender voted against the zoning change previously.
Wender said the last time Roaring River officials appeared before the commission, Wagner talked about a water project for phase 1 of the development. Wender said Wagner gave the commissioners the impression "all was well" with the project. But Wender said he later learned about Roaring River employees being fired.
Sharon Cruikshank, who heads the Plateau Chamber of Commerce, said Saturday that she tried calling the Roaring River office all day Friday, but the phone was busy each time. Cruikshank said she, too, had heard rumors that the land office closed. She was trying to reach the office to find out if the chamber should remove the company from its information packet.
Many questions remain unanswered, such as what will happen to the people who bought lots there.
The project was just getting started, with some lots sold in phase one of three proposed phases.
When Wagner introduced the project to the public, he said the housing development would make "the softest environmental footprint" possible.
But many people were concerned about the environmental impact of the project. Original plans called for building more than 2,000 houses on approximately 4,300 acres of land.
FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. -- Seventeen employees who worked for the largest housing development project proposed for the New River Gorge have lost their jobs and the local office for Roaring River has closed, the president of the Fayette County Commission said Saturday.
But Commission President Ken Eskew said he believes the company will continue to work on phase one of its three-phase project.
Eskew said, "They [Roaring River] got caught up in this economic downturn from the housing market collapse. They had to cut back some. But they are going forward with phase one."
The company's office on U.S. 19 in Fayetteville was closed on Friday. Callers to the company's local number heard a busy signal.
Roaring River employees did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
Information about Roaring River is also apparently missing on the Internet. When computer users try to access the development's Web site, they receive an error message.
Tom Wagner, former general manager for Roaring River, as well as officials at the Atlanta headquarters of parent company Land Resources Companies did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Wender said Saturday he had personal knowledge of the Roaring River office closing. But he added that company officials have not formally notified the county commission of the closing.
Roaring River employees needed approval from the Fayette County Commission for zoning changes that allowed them to start their project. Wender voted against the zoning change previously.
Wender said the last time Roaring River officials appeared before the commission, Wagner talked about a water project for phase 1 of the development. Wender said Wagner gave the commissioners the impression "all was well" with the project. But Wender said he later learned about Roaring River employees being fired.
Sharon Cruikshank, who heads the Plateau Chamber of Commerce, said Saturday that she tried calling the Roaring River office all day Friday, but the phone was busy each time. Cruikshank said she, too, had heard rumors that the land office closed. She was trying to reach the office to find out if the chamber should remove the company from its information packet.
Many questions remain unanswered, such as what will happen to the people who bought lots there.
The project was just getting started, with some lots sold in phase one of three proposed phases.
When Wagner introduced the project to the public, he said the housing development would make "the softest environmental footprint" possible.
But many people were concerned about the environmental impact of the project. Original plans called for building more than 2,000 houses on approximately 4,300 acres of land.
In public meetings, several people - some representing the National Park Service - pointed out 484 houses could be seen from within the park. These houses would be located along the river from Thurmond to Kaymoor.
Before he retired, former Park Superintendent Cal Hite spoke at many public meetings about the impact of this proposed housing development and others.
Hite pointed out that surveys of people who visited the park indicated sightseeing was the No. 1 activity. Hite and his staff projected computer studies that showed how houses could be seen from various points within the gorge.
"Sightseeing knows no boundaries," Hite said.
In public hearings, members of Roaring River's staff always denied that the houses would be visible.
When Congress created the New River Gorge National River in 1979, boundaries were drawn for the park, but not all of the land within that boundary belonged to the park. Some of it remains in private hands to this day. Over the years, park officials have negotiated with private landowners and added more acreage to the park.
Park officials were in the process of negotiating the purchase of some of the same land that ended up in the hands of developers. Some of the same issues about protecting the gorge came up in numerous public hearings involving for smaller land companies, too. But the Roaring River subdivision would have been the largest-ever proposed for Fayette.
Three years ago, parent company Land Resources Companies made its first move to get zoning approval for the project in Fayette County. Land Resources said it had built 12 other upscale developments, such as Blue Mist Farm near Asheville, N.C., and Villages at Norris Lake, LaFollette, Tenn., since they started their company in 1997. Roaring River would be its 13th development.
"No matter where you are in life," the company's Web site stated, "Land Resource Companies can help you find the pathway to living at its very best."
Park Service employees created a "virtual flyover" on a computer program that they showed at several public meetings during the last two years. With computer generation, the program showed how roofs on houses, roads through subdivisions and even clothes drying on a line could be visible at different points within the national park.
Margie Rust, a regional director for the National Park Service, along with other members of the park service, told Land Resources that cutting into the gorge would also cut into "the largest remaining stand of mid-latitude forest in the world, making it a globally significant resource."
In a letter to Land Resources, she wrote that "roads, houses and other facilities in your plan would fragment this forest." She also wrote that she feared what the houses would do to sensitive plant and animal life in the gorge.
The company seems to have shut down the local office in the same week people around the world wondered if the nation's two biggest home loan companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would survive.
Officials with Roaring River and several other companies proposed building houses in the gorge shortly before the national housing market took a nosedive. For the most part, West Virginia did not get sucked up into the national housing bubble. But when the bubble broke and mortgage stocks started to shake, people found it harder to take out housing loans.
Roaring River was targeting the second-home market, but vacation-home sales plummeted by more than 30 percent in 2007, according to Kiplinger.com.
Reach Susan Williams at susanwilli...@wvgazette.com or 348-5112.
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I no longer live in my home state, but retain property there. THANKS BE TO GOD that the Roaring River project seems to be dying. As a retiree, I cannot afford to pay the higher property taxes that development would have created for the county property owners.
Fayette County Commission this should be a lesson to you instead of looking out for the needs of a few wealthy who will only live in your county part time look out for the people who use the resources.
I Kid You Not !