Planners facing marathon meeting

Mathis Winkler

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

Unlike their City Council counterparts, who rarely spend more than an hour in meetings , North Las Vegas planning commissioners frequently debate issues late into the night.

Commissioners on Wednesday face another marathon meeting, with several big-ticket items on the agenda. They include:

The plan, which serves as the blueprint for the city's future look, has to be changed to reflect the proposed development, which will include about 7,500 homes ranging from apartment buildings to mansion-style executive homes. Also planned are areas for office buildings, shopping centers and a hotel.

In separate items, the developers are also asking commissioners to approve a tentative map for the community, which would divide the land into 87 separate parcels.

Commissioners will also discuss a request to realign several streets in the community to create fewer crossings of the Las Vegas Beltway, which will bisect the land. While the city's current street plan shows the streets as a grid, the realignment would curve them through the community.

Approval of the requests is likely because they are based on a development agreement between the developers and the city. Council members adopted the plan Jan. 16. The city's Planning Department also supports the changes.

Though land for commercial areas is currently limited to the intersection of Centennial Parkway and North Fifth Street as well as a 500-acre area just south of the beltway between Pecos Road and Lamb Boulevard, the proposal would create smaller commercial centers at four intersections along Centennial Parkway and reduce the large area near the beltway to 140 acres.

Once commissioners have made a decision on the proposal, they'll also have to consider several applications by developers to build shopping centers along the parkway. Many of these projects have been on file with the city for months, but a decision was delayed so that a comprehensive study on the area's commercial needs could be completed.

Although most of this part of town has not been developed, residents living near the intersection of Centennial Parkway and Commerce Street oppose plans for shopping centers at that corner and are likely to voice their protests at the meeting.

School District officials say the new school would help ease overcrowding at other schools in the area. But city officials oppose the plan, saying the school does not fit the city's plans for the redevelopment area in the older part of town where the school would be located.com