County Commission turns down homes under airport flight path

Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

A 304-unit residential development that was opposed by government agencies and helped prompt a push for the reform of Clark County's master-planning land-use process was thrown out Wednesday by the Clark County Commission.

In a reconsideration requested by Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, the commission voted 5-2 to strip the zone change granted in December for the Woodside Homes project on 30 acres off Sunset Road and the Tenaya Way alignment. The approval was widely lampooned because it put the residential development directly under the flight path of jets leaving McCarran International Airport.

The Clark County School District, airport staff, county planning staff and Spring Valley Town Advisory Board had all recommended denial of the project. The Clark County Planning Commission, an advisory board, had recommended approval.

Attorney Chris Kaempfer, representing the developer, argued that the project was near other residential projects that have received approval from the County Commission. He said the project would have satisfied "a dire need for housing, and especially entry-level housing" in the Las Vegas market.

But Carolyn Edwards, a community activist and a volunteer member of the School District's zoning commission, said the project would set a bad precedent and give the district a big problem down the road.

The property for the project, master-planned for commercial or industrial uses, is within the county's cooperative management area, or CMA, where residential uses are discouraged by federal and local law.

The School District, Edwards said, is prohibited from building a new school in the area. Furthermore, the School District had given up land that it could once have used to build schools on. District officials have said it would cost millions to go back to build schools in an area that by agreement was supposed to have few residents.

"If we build high-density housing in the CMA, all of those children will be bused," she said.

Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who represents the area and has fought for greater adherence to existing master plans, introduced the motion to deny the developer's zoning request.

He did not have universal support from his colleagues. Commission Chairwoman Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and Commissioner Myrna Williams echoed Kaempfer's argument that other residential development exists nearby.

But Aviation Department Director Randy Walker said the airport has consistently opposed residential proposals in the area since the master plan, approved in 1998, has been in place.

"People do not understand until they live under these flight patterns what it is like," Walker said.

The development also would have doomed the airport's plans to develop nearby land for industrial purposes, he said. The airport received thousands of acres throughout the cooperative management area as part of the agreement with the federal government, part of an effort to control noise-related complaints.

Federal rules bar the airport from ever developing the land it owns residentially, Walker noted.

With the overturning of the zoning approved in December, the County Commission, including new members Rory Reid and Mark James, has set a precedent for stronger adherence to existing master plans. Later this month and next month the commission considers ordinances that would make master plans impossible to change for two years after adoption and more difficult to modify after that time.