Border skirmish: Zoning conflicts arise as valley’s cities grow

Jeffrey Libby

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

It's about nightfall, and first-grade soccer players are drilling at the Russell Road Recreation Complex. Just across the road in unincorporated Clark County, Babydolls snaps on its giant, raspberry-red neon sign, advertising the "Live Nude, Adult Bookstore."

It's a sign easily read even from U.S. 95, which is about a half-mile away. Call it a sign of the times.

As cities in the Las Vegas Valley expand to their borders, governments can create neighbors that no planning board would likely approve within its boundaries.

"It's quite an academy isn't it?" Cathy Rosenfield, a Henderson resident and mother of two children, 8 and 10, said of the Babydolls store. "We're out on a summer night sitting on a park bench and there's 10 kids playing. They see the blue lights flashing and they ask, 'What's that?' It's embarrassing."

Joelle Visconti, another Henderson parent and elementary school PTA president, said she is concerned that certain lots, which are currently empty, could attract similar businesses.

"I don't live on Industrial Road," she said. "If I wanted to live near those kinds of businesses I'd move over there. But I live in Green Valley. It's a family community. What am I supposed to say, 'We're right by the freeway, next to the flashing lights?' "

By March, the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition wants agreements in place that could prevent these awkward pairings. It wants governments to alert one another to planned "projects of regional significance" along shared borders.

The coalition is comprised of members from each of Southern Nevada's city governments, the Clark County Commission and the county school district.

But the coalition's developing pact, though helpful for the coordination of roads, utilities and other major infrastructure, appears to be little more than a paper promise in regard to quality of life issues. It allows a venue for neighbors to vent, but does nothing to force governments to do anything more than listen.

A Clark County gas station that opened in July provides a case in point.

At the juncture of St. Rose Parkway and Las Vegas Boulevard, the station sits at the future gateway to Henderson and is part of the southwest valley, which since January 1999 has been included as part of an interlocal agreement between Henderson and Clark County.

That agreement is similar in many ways to the long sought-after interlocal agreement reached earlier this month between Las Vegas and Clark County, which calls for the city to annex county property in an orderly fashion and involves stakeholders in the process.

According to the 1999 agreement, Clark County let Henderson know about the planned station for several reasons: it required new zoning, and the proposed landscaping was not up to design standards the county had adopted as part of its own gateway area to the valley.

Beyond that, the proposed gas station used a septic system and well water.

"The whole thing out there, without the water, the sewer, the minimal landscaping -- it's just like your old gas station spot along the highway," Bonnie Rinaldi, Henderson assistant city manager, said. "I just think the whole community is beyond that. I thought that was another time."

Henderson officials told the county as much in their opposition to the station as it was proposed.

"So, they considered our concerns, and they dismissed them," Rinaldi said.

John Schlegel, Clark County director of comprehensive planning, remembers it about the same way.

"We agreed we'd take their comments into consideration, but we're not obligated to do exactly what they ask, if I recall correctly," Schlegel said.

County commissioners most likely made their decision, he said, based on the expense of connecting an isolated business to water and sewer lines.

"If they would like us to adopt different standards closer to their own, I wish they would appear before us with these types of standards," he said.

That, in fact, is exactly what the coalition is trying to accomplish. One of the main goals is to ensure that governments' comprehensive plans are not in conflict at shared borders.

But if the awkward situation at Russell Road provides any indication, there are likely to be further disagreements as the planning coalition finalizes proposed regulations for regional projects.

For instance, even with the proposed noticing requirements on the table today, an adult bookstore could be built in Clark County across from a park in Henderson without the need for county officials to notify their city counterparts.

In the proposed regulations, there are four basic situations in which a government board must alert its neighbor. For three of those, the requirement extends a half-mile: for projects with more than 500 residences; tourist accommodations for more than 300; and commercial facilities that will generate more than 6,250 trips per day.

The noticing requirement extends just 500 feet for projects that require special permits.

And in Clark County, adult-oriented businesses don't require special permits. Rather, they are required to locate in industrial parks, such as the case with Babydolls on Emerald Avenue. What's more, the business is more than 500 feet north of the county line.

So if an adult store decided to move in next door, but further east along Emerald Avenue away from Pacific Truss and Components Inc. and Custom Asphalt -- two neighbors of Babydolls -- that would bring the business almost directly across the street from Central Christian Church, one of the largest congregations in the Las Vegas Valley. There would be little legally -- in either existing or proposed laws -- that either government could do to stop the move.

Schlegel says that as much as Clark County wants to be a good neighbor, it cannot abdicate its responsibility to approve what is legally allowed in its own jurisdiction.

The question, he said, is in what instances municipalities will agree to notify one another.

Henderson Councilman Jack Clark, who has been fielding many of the questions from parents of children practicing at the Russell Road park, would like to see notification standards that would mirror the city's stricter requirements. In Henderson, special use permits are required for adult-oriented businesses.

Shari Buck, chairwoman of the planning coalition and a North Las Vegas city councilwoman, said Clark's suggestion could be considered.

"My hope would be that the cities would view us as a place to come and try to resolve these differences," she said. "I just think Clark County or Henderson -- we all have the goal to work with each other."