Law of the land

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

No one at Boulder City Hall denies that staff members shaved a city-owned lot to 0.997 acres to avoid having the $171,000 sale go before voters for approval.

But there is plenty of argument as to whether the potential deal circumvents a 1997 amendment to the city charter that requires a vote on the sale of city-owned parcels larger than 1 acre.

The charter change, passed four years ago in a ballot initiative, was designed to keep voters in control of how the town grows, given that City Hall is the town's major landowner. It came after previous councils sold several parcels of city property in the early 1990s.

In the four years since the initiative passed, the city has yet to sell any of its land outright.

Some residents say that if voters are eliminated from this sale, the City Council could avoid them again on bigger projects -- such as the council's informal plans to build homes around the municipal golf course that is under construction.

The current deal, as proposed, would allow Terra Concepts Inc. to buy the parcel just west of Quartzite Road. The city would provide an additional one-third acre right-of-way at no cost to the developer.

The deal would allow the developer's 20-acre, 51-lot subdivision to empty onto a new residential road rather than Nevada Highway or U.S. 93. The parcel would be cut from a roughly 2-acre piece of city-owned land. The remaining 1-acre parcel, left unbuildable by the proposed sale, would be landscaped at the developer's expense.

The Boulder City Council votes tonight on the proposed sale. Councilman Bill Smith, who says the deal would set a bad precedent, said if it is approved, he plans to seek an injunction to stop the project until a judge can rule on the issue.

"We feel the City Council should be representing the best interests of the community, not the best interests of a particular developer. If they (council members) had done it right, they should have sold the whole piece and it should go to a vote," Smith said.

"The land sale section of the charter means exactly what it says -- when the city sells land, the voter wants to approve it."

Councilman Bryan Nix, who favors the land sale, agrees with Smith, but comes to an opposite conclusion.

"We cut that piece out to comply with the ordinance. We, as a council, have the authority to sell less than an acre," Nix said.

Nix said the deal would in no way set a bad precedent.

"That's absolute pure, unadulterated horse pucky," Nix said. "Nobody in Boulder City is being harmed by this, not one soul."

Nix said the plans for the development were on the books when the city built Quartzite Road. He said city engineers should not have swung the road so wide of the potential project. He sees granting the sale and right-of-way as the city's obligation.

If the council sold the developer a parcel of just under an acre, then sold another one to the same developer, that would constitute a circumvention of the initiative, Nix said.

But that's not planned, Nix said.

In the case of building custom homes around the new golf course, however, Nix said he would like to see the city subdivide about 30 acres to build 60 homes overlooking the 450-acre course planned southeast of Veterans Memorial Drive and Adams Boulevard.

"We could sell half-acre lots all day long without violating the charter," Nix said. "We absolutely could. I don't think that's a bad thing for Boulder City."

But Sandra Reuther, a retired computer programmer who runs a local informational television talk show, said the merits of each deal should be decided by voters, not the council.

"I don't know that I'd care if they built 90 houses by the golf course. I just want them to take it to the voters. We own so much land. If the City Council starts dividing it all up, they could be dividing the town lot by lot and selling it. And even if they can justify it, they're still circumventing the principles."