Local government may be able to exercise control on land exchanges

Denise Cardinal

Tuesday, April 7, 1998 | 9:46 a.m.

Local governments might soon be able to tell the Bureau of Land Management what should be done with the 25,000 acres of public land in the Las Vegas Valley that are eligible to be exchanged with private developers in the next 20 years.

The Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority endorsed the idea of forming a public land commission made up of local mayors and two Clark County commissioners. The commission, informally referred to as the PLC, would advise the BLM on what uses would be appropriate for the land exchanged with local developers.

The idea is the brainchild of Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone, who made a presentation about the PLC to the authority on Monday.

The authority also agreed that once Malone had the details of the committee's structure planned, he should come back to the authority to get it endorsed again.

Under Malone's plan, the commission would operate under the Government Efficiency Committee -- a committee that already exists and is made up of the same members the PLC would have.

The Government Efficiency Committee was recently brought into the spotlight by Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury who is pushing a charge to change the committee into the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition. An April 16 meeting scheduled to discuss this item might be changed because Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones can't attend.

Accompanying Malone at Monday's meeting was Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, who was recently asked by Malone to support the creation of the PLC. Titus has been at the forefront of discussions involving the city's growth because she proposed the "ring around the valley" growth measure at the last legislative session. Her proposal would have essentially stopped any high-density development outside of a boundary drawn around the city.

Titus became involved in Malone's plan because his PLC plan is the BLM's land disposal boundary that marks the land owned by the federal agency that is considered eligible for private ownership. Titus' ring is the exact same boundary.

Though there are about 52,000 acres of land inside the boundary, only about 25,000 would be considered for private ownership. The rest was made available to local governments for parks, schools, airports land and the Las Vegas Beltway.

The boundary that's being used now, however, will soon be changing, according to Mike Dwyer, district manager for the BLM. Dwyer, who was also at the authority's meeting to discuss the PLC, said his agency is almost finished with the three-year process of changing the boundary and the land use inside that line.

"The first line we drew was very arbitrary," he said. "Basically, it was a square around the city that included Frenchman's and the Sheep Mountains and the Black Mountains down by Henderson. This new line comes inside in those areas, but is extended farther south down the highway."

Dwyer said the BLM would benefit from Malone's idea.

"The idea with that boundary is that it's in the best interest of the public to get rid of the land inside of it," he said. "We just want to make sure we're doing the right thing with it."

Through informal consensus, the authority approved the concept of the PLC. However, authority member and developer Tito Tiberti, was quite vocal that he didn't like getting "ambushed."

"I think it's inappropriate to ask us to decide on this now," he said. "You're asking an awful lot. And I won't support something that limits us."

Tiberti conceded that it was a good idea to send Malone's proposal to another agency to examine, then bring the idea back with the specifics of the commission's makeup and processes.