Planners reject northwest LV office complex

Friday, Feb. 9, 2001 | 10:34 a.m.

"Don't change our zoning" was the clear message from residents of Las Vegas's northwest at Thursday's Clark County Planning Commission meeting.

It was a message that the commissioners heard.

The commission voted unanimously to recommend denial of a controversial proposal to put a commercial office building at the southeast corner of Alexander Road and Buffalo Drive.

Edward "Brent" Lovett, president of Matrix Construction Consulting, sought the recommendation from the Planning Board for a 30,000-square-foot office complex. He argued that the project would mesh well with walled communities on Alexander and a park adjacent to his property.

But the project's foes included the county staff, the city of Las Vegas, the Lone Mountain Citizens Advisory Council and hundreds of nearby residents.

Most of the residents live in the city. The 1.8-acre property is on an island of unincorporated county land within the city.

One of the residents who opposes the project is Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown. He did not attend the meeting, but he objects to the property because the area is zoned for residential use on the master plan jointly negotiated by the city and county.

About 120 of his neighbors attended the sometimes raucous meeting to protest the project. Planning Commission Chairman Will Watson called for quiet on several occasions as Lovett argued for the office complex.

Tony Burges, a nearby resident and staunch foe of the project, submitted a petition to the Planning Commission with about 500 names in opposition to the office complex.

Jim Veltman, a land-use planner who worked to develop the area's master plan in the mid-1990s, urged the board to respect that plan.

"The basic design has no commercial and no retail west of Tenaya," Veltman said. "It took us a long time to get this plan. Maintain the general plan because that's what the residents came up with."

Linda Fionda, representing the Alexander Road Association and Northwest Citizens Association, agreed. She said that allowing the project would encourage more commercial applications on both Alexander and Buffalo.

"There is nothing wrong with a residential area that stays residential," she said.

Lovett had about a dozen allies of the project at the meeting, and submitted a petition with 171 names in support of the office complex.

Paul Martin, an architect who said he plans to move nearby the property, said the concerns about the project were off target.

"This is not a commercial development," he said. An office complex would be "a lot different from commercial."

"Any master plan that works has to be flexible," he said.

His appeal was rejected by the Planning Commission, but not before commissioners Watson and Kirby Trumbo warned that commercial applications for the property are likely to come in the future as the area continues to develop.

Thursday night's meeting won't be the last for the project. The application to rezone the property for offices is scheduled to go before the Clark County County Commission on March 7; the board action only adds another recommendation to deny the application.