Car dealerships ‘bleeding out’ of northwest’s Town Center

Diana Sahagun

Thursday, June 7, 2001 | 11:39 a.m.

New-car dealerships in the city's northwest will be stopped from opening over the next 60 days while the Las Vegas City Council prepares an ordinance aimed at preserving the original intent of the Town Center master plan.

Councilman Michael Mack asked for the moratorium, and it was approved following a two-hour debate with an applicant who was trying to open a car dealership on Rancho Drive, outside the Town Center limits, where the dealerships are discouraged.

The application was ultimately denied.

The vision for the Town Center when its plan was adopted in 1996 was to locate all of the commercial uses in one area, near U.S. 95 and Centennial Parkway, to prevent sprawl into residential areas. But there was never a formal ordinance forbidding car dealerships from opening elsewhere.

Some car dealers have tried to locate outside the boundaries in commercial areas, saying prices at Town Center are too expensive. Several car dealerships are operating outside the boundaries because they opened before the Town Center plan was adopted.

City Councilman Larry Brown, who represented the Town Center area during his first term before the council was expanded, said he was "philosophically" opposed to the proposed dealership's location.

"We created Town Center for a specific purpose," Brown said. "It's unfair to allow the uses to start bleeding out of Town Center when we intended to keep those uses together."

The new ordinance will be similar to an ordinance adopted in Henderson, which requires new-car dealerships to locate on at least 50 acres where there are at least five other dealerships. What was created as a result was the Valley Auto Mall -- hundreds of acres of car dealerships in one location.

On Wednesday, resident John Staluppi appeared before the City Council on a routine site plan review for a 25,932-square-foot Nissan car dealership near Rancho Drive and Lone Mountain Road.

The routine item, which was approved by the Planning Commission, left council members grappling with how to preserve Town Center without punishing a landowner who said he couldn't afford the high land prices.

Staluppi was trying to locate in a commercial area that allows car dealerships but which is not in sync with the Town Center plan.

One resident owns the 50-plus acreage designated as the future location for an "auto mall" at Town Center, and an adjacent 50-acre site has a different owner.

Staluppi said the land prices were too expensive and that the owners have a monopoly on the land so he wanted to take his business outside Town Center.

Attorney Anthony Strow, representing Staluppi, threatened to sue the city several times, arguing the dealership conformed with the commercial zone. He also said Staluppi was given the indication by Mack that the site plan was a done deal, and he therefore spent $200,000 for site plans and other expenses.

Mack voted to deny the site plans because they were not compatible with nearby developments and are not consistent with the Town Center plan. He was supported by the rest of the council, although Councilman Michael McDonald and Mayor Oscar Goodman abstained.

The members then approved the 60-day moratorium.

"It's an unfair advantage that you don't have to build to the same standards as the rest of Town Center," Mack said.