City Council will take up huge annexation issue

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000 | 10:39 a.m.

When the city of Las Vegas wants to annex even one or two blocks of county land, the process is usually mired in controversy.

Yet on Wednesday, the Las Vegas City Council will begin the process of annexing 661 acres without even a peep of protest.

That's because only one resident actually lives in the vast area of northwest Las Vegas, and the other landowners think the annexation will improve their investment.

"The landowners are the ones who actually told us to go for it," said James Veltman, a planning consultant who worked for more than a year on the annexation. "Every single one of them wants this."

Part of the property, west of Hualapai Way and north of Grand Teton Road, is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. When the annexation process began last year, about 55 private landowners also owned property in the area.

Since Veltman began seeking approval from the property owners for annexation, however, many of them sold their land to real estate developers -- leaving only 27 current landowners in the entire 661 acre area.

"You wouldn't believe the resistance we got from the county," Veltman said. "We were chastised because they said we were only doing this to help developers."

But Councilman Michael Mack, whose ward will encompass the annexed acreage, said the move will allow more land to fall into the area's Town Center master plan.

"It would be in Town Center standards, and it would really protect the Town Center and add more rooftops to the west side of the highway to help support it."

Town Center is a master-planned, 2,000-acre area in northwest Las Vegas tapped to become a second employment and residential base. Hundreds of thousands of residents will call Town Center home in the coming years.

Veltman, whose consulting company helped create the Town Center master plan, said he believes the annexation will define the western edge to Town Center.

The annexation, which could be finalized Jan. 12, would change the land from county zoning to planned community development zoning in the city.

Louise Ruskamp, president of the Tule Springs Homeowners Association and an active watchdog of zoning issues, agrees the city zoning will help preserve the area.

"We have a far better chance of getting them to stick to the master in the city," Ruskamp said. "If it's in the county, the sky's the limit."

Although Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone led the initial opposition to the annexation, Veltman said he was able to change county officials' minds by having all of the individual property owners fill out forms in support of the process.

Veltman said one landowner, a Southern California woman, purchased five acres when she and her husband married 40 years ago. Her initial $5,000 investment gives her a crucial parcel at the junction of Fort Apache Road and the future Las Vegas Beltway today.

"These people just want to protect their investments," Veltman said.

Veltman envisions the property being developed with office parks, technology centers and employment bases with a huge residential area west of Fort Apache Road.

An L-shaped portion between Fort Apache and El Capitan Way has the potential for higher-density residential and office development, he added.

"Typically an annexation is just a few acres," Mack said. "But this one has the potential to really have a huge impact on everything that happens in that area."

The annexation will be introduced Wednesday as a new bill. It will then be forwarded to the council's Recommending Committee for a public hearing before coming back to the council for a vote in early January.