Mayor cites town’s accomplishments in ‘State of Blacksburg’

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - Blacksburg’s Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith credits the town for reducing its spending during the pandemic. She says those efforts put the town in a good position moving forward.

Hager-Smith released a “State of Blacksburg,” addressing accomplishments over the past few years and pushing for new goals going forward.

“I think 90% of the work that I do as an elected official is to help manage change and we’ve had a huge amount of it,” she said.

She says over the last three years, the town has been able to accomplish three major goals.

“We’ve kept people safe, we have managed our money well and we have made very large strides towards equity in town and I think we can feel really proud about that,” she said.

Hager-Smith is also addressing the need for more housing in the area of all types.

“What we plan to do is to change our zoning ordinance in helpful ways, so that we will allow smaller lot sizes and we will allow accessory apartments in standalone buildings,” Hager-Smith said.

The zoning vote is scheduled for May.

“These are good solutions to housing people so we want to get there,” she said. “It is time intensive to change zoning code, but it’s where we need to be right now.”

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