Thursday, April 9, 1998 | 10:20 a.m.
Even with a "ring around the valley" to manage development, the Bureau of Land Management has enough disposable land within that parameter to allow growth in the Las Vegas Valley well into the next century.
"We figure what we've got inside that ring is about a 15-year supply for Las Vegas to grow," BLM District Manager Michael Dwyer told a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday.
Dwyer discussed the future of federally owned lands that encompass the Las Vegas Valley and that are often coveted by developers. Anti-growth advocates have called for a "ring" as a way to halt sprawl and encourage development in undeveloped urban areas.
The BLM has 52,000 acres inside the ring, some 27,000 of which would be available for future development. That does not include privately owned land. The agency is anxious to rid itself of the land it owns in more urbanized locales so it can focus on managing its rural holdings. For example, the BLM owns 15 acres at the corner of Tropicana and Decatur.
"This needs to be private land, or it needs to be in the hands of local government," Dwyer said. "We don't want to manage these little parcels of land. It's impossible to do in a city of one million."
Dwyer said the agency hopes to "hold the line" on that ring. While the theoretical boundary has been the topic of much discussion in recent months among politicians, the BLM has had one in place since 1984. State Sen. Dina Titus proposed legislation to create such a boundary during the last session of the Legislature, prompting an outcry from builders and developers.
The difference between the two is that the BLM's ring does not hinder privately owned land, Joanne Jensen of the Southern Nevada Homebuilder's Association said.
"We've always maintained from the beginning that was unneeded because most of the land in the valley is owned by the federal government," Jensen said. "There are controls on growth in this community."
Attempts to contact Titus Wednesday failed.
A more recent growth-management plan would establish a commission comprised of representatives from the county and each of its municipalities to discuss land swaps between developers and the BLM. Dwyer said the BLM has always sought to coordinate land swaps with local governments.
But Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone, who is proposing the commission, said that approach may not have been widely known. The purpose of his proposal is to get all the governmental interests in the county in one room to look at the impact a BLM land swap would have on the overall development picture and offer input to the agency, which would still have the final say.
"It's just an advisory board. We have no veto powers over the BLM," Malone said.
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