Titus: Growth panel ‘hostile’

Larry Henry

Friday, Jan. 16, 1998 | 10:12 a.m.

State Sen. Dina Titus' second bid to create a growth boundary around the Las Vegas Valley was panned Thursday by a board studying growth in booming Clark County.

Asked afterward to describe a 30-minute question-and-answer session with the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority, Titus said, "I thought the whole thing was hostile."

Moments earlier, Titus, D-Las Vegas, told the planning authority that Southern Nevadans are frustrated with growth problems and demand concrete solutions.

She said her so-called ring around the valley, which would restrict growth in outlying areas and was defeated during the 1997 Legislature, will stop urban sprawl.

Titus urged the authority to back her proposal.

"Just read the polls," she said. "I don't want to be in the position of saying, 'I told you so."'

The planning authority will present recommendations to the next Legislature in 1999. Titus plans to re-introduce the no-growth boundary even without the authority's stamp of approval.

That approval appears unlikely. In an earlier meeting, the board said its top issue is assuring that government restrictions don't impede business growth.

"A lot of people who work with me like growth because there are jobs," authority member Terry Wright, representing the Nevada Development Authority, said after the meeting.

Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said bluntly, "We have a ring, and that's a free-market ring."

Titus said the planning authority is perceived as too pro-growth. Eight of the 21 members represent industries that benefit from growth, including casinos, developers and unions.

One member accused Titus of grandstanding.

Tito Tiberti, who represents the Nevada Taxpayers Association and owns a construction company, said during an interview that he sensed Thursday's meeting would be politicized when he saw television trucks in the parking lot at the Cashman Field Center.

He said TV stations rarely have covered the planning authority since it began meeting in September but showed up this time because of Titus.

"These are re-election issues," Tiberti scoffed.

Titus and Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones have criticized the planning authority for moving too slowly and promised to present a separate growth-solving plan.

Jones, who recently learned she has breast cancer, serves on the authority but missed Thursday's meeting. She had undergone tests at hospitals in Los Angeles and Houston before returning this week to Las Vegas.

In addition to the no-growth ring, Titus unveiled three other elements of her and Jones' breakaway plan.

Titus said the state should have more control over local growth decisions, and she supports consolidating state and local environmental protection agencies.

In addition, Titus said she is "exploring" a pay-as-you-go system that requires developers and governments to build roads and other infrastructure before construction begins.

Also at Thursday's meeting, Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said she'll re-introduce a bill at the 1999 session to develop a regional planning board that will require managed growth.

The Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority is advisory.

Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury presented a plan to the authority Thursday to create a Regional Planning Coalition that also would be advisory.

The main focus Thursday, however, was on Titus' no-growth ring.

As she did at the 1997 Legislature, Titus told the planning authority that the growth boundary, which roughly matches the valley's natural barriers, would encourage development in vacant spots near downtown.

She said 94,000 undeveloped acres inside the boundary would still allow the area's 1.2 million population to triple in 20 years.

That appeal was not enough to convince Clark County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates and Commissioner Lorraine Hunt, who serve on the planning authority and listened to Titus' proposal.

Gates and Hunt testified against Titus' bill at the 1997 Legislature. They argued that growth boundaries create urban density and drive up housing costs.

"It doesn't limit growth," Gates said Thursday in a hallway outside the hearing room. "It doesn't manage growth. It doesn't stop growth."

Hunt, who said the county already enforces growth boundaries in some areas, criticized Jones and Titus for pushing their own agenda.

"We should be sitting at the same table," she said.