Botetourt residents had the opportunity last Thursday to tell Renaissance Planning consultants and county planning and zoning staff how they’d like to see development evolve in the new Gateway Crossing Urban Development Area (UDA) around the Exit 150 interchange.

Renaissance Planning is tasked with making recommendations for zoning code revisions and design guidelines within the UDA that the consulting firm also helped develop last year.

Mike Callahan with Renaissance Planning started the open house-style meeting in Fincastle with a brief explanation of what the consulting firm will be doing over the next couple of months then asked the nearly three dozen people at the meeting to provide suggestions and comment on possible landscape and design possibilities they had displayed in photographs.

The public had the opportunity to provide specific lists with their thoughts on transportation, design, public safety, local government policies, big ideas and gathering places, and to tell the consultants what their favorite places to provide ideas of they type of development they’d like to see.

The public’s input will be incorporated into the code recommendations that are expected to go before the Gateway Crossing/Exit 150 Steering Committee as early as December and then to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors perhaps in January.

Design guidelines for the Gateway Crossing UDA that Renaissance Planning develops are also expected to be ready for the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors in January.