Friday, April 24, 1998 | 10:07 a.m.
To hear the Urban Land Institute tell it, Las Vegas is doomed.
The Washington, D.C.-based organization just released a report about growth in the Valley, and it reads like the screenplay for a summer disaster flick.
The ULI is a land policy institute that sends its members, who are professionally involved in land issues throughout the country, into communities to conduct unbiased studies about the needs of the region.
In Las Vegas there isn't enough land, water, housing, schools or roads to possibly support more than 1.7 million people, according to the study. Not to mention that the major industries -- gaming and tourism -- have shown lackluster numbers for the past few months.
Without the one engine that pulls this desert town along, ULI reported, the city's economics will plummet. Thousands will be without jobs and the lack of revenue from casinos will empty out all of the government coffers, leaving residents with little services.
It's a grim picture -- complete with charts and graphs -- that the institute has painted for the city's future.
But ULI also found a way for this to be fixed -- regionalism.
"If you want to see two good reasons for regionalism, I'll give you Los Angeles and San Francisco," said Jim Pollak, chair of the ULI research team that spent a week in Las Vegas to work on the study. "They speak for themselves."
If the Valley were to combine its local governments, the ULI wrote, the urban sprawl oozing into the rural desert surrounding the city could be contained. Henderson, North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Clark County would have the same developing rules -- so developers couldn't pit one government against the other.
Air quality could be addressed as a Valley-wide issue, rather than cities pointing fingers at Clark County health officials like they do now. Mass transit could become a reality with one entity lobbying the gaming industry to help foot the bill, rather than the smaller separate governments trying to get their pieces of the pie.
In short, the ULI study read, Las Vegas would be a better place.
Problem is, the "R"-word isn't an easy one for local officials -- especially elected ones -- to swallow. That became painfully obvious at a panel discussion about the ULI report on Thursday.
Present at the panel were politicians, developers, academics and activists. And when it came time to talk about regionalism, and how it would work in the Las Vegas Valley, developers were the first to back down.
From their perspective, regionalism just doesn't make sense. Sure, they concede, it might be easier to have one set of design standards, fees and specifications for all of the Valley.
"(But) zoning and land use is too important to be left in the hands of a regional board," said Mark Doppe, past president of the homebuilders association and developer.
At least with current planning boards, he said, you know the people making the decisions about projects live near them. A regional board might not be set up like that.
Henderson Mayor Jim Gibbons agreed.
"I don't want to make zoning decisions for North Las Vegas," he said. "What we have already has worked so well that it will be extremely difficult for us to give it up."
But if the cities don't give it up, the state Legislature might force them to. In the 1997 session, a bill was passed forming the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority -- a board of local leaders and elected officials -- to start addressing the problems that growth has caused in the Valley. Though the board was formed to report back to the 1999 Legislature, it has no real authority, making it difficult for there to be any real consolidation.
There is also another board recently formed, called the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition. It's made up of almost the same members as the authority, and like the authority, has no real power.
And with most public officials, that's fine by them.
"Each entity needs to keep its autonomy," said Clark County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates. "What we have now with the planning authority works well, I think. We do need to better communicate but not to a degree where we tell each other what to do."
Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, long a supporter and vocal minority of the kind of regionalism that ULI is recommending, stood her ground.
"I think you're absolutely wrong," she told the panel members. "It doesn't work the way it's structured."
For example, there is a Regional Transportation Commission, that ostensibly meets to find ways to keep the transportation systems in the Valley compatible. But Jones points out there are roads between the city and the county that don't meet. She blames the RTC, which has no real authority to override any local government's decision, for the broken up roads.
"I don't want to make zoning decisions for someone else," she said. "But it could be a way for broader community issues to be addressed."
Anyway it's looked at, however, the fact remains that Las Vegas is growing and sometimes the services needed for the bourgeoning population can't keep up. Whether regionalism -- as prescribed by the ULI -- can help the Valley with its problems is something that local officials are more than willing to wait and find out.
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