Land-use changes in the works

Friday, Jan. 3, 2003 | 5:38 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Jan. 5, 2003

When Dave and Cheryl Wrzesinski moved into their home four years ago, they thought they would always see the stunning crags of the Spring Mountains beyond their back yard.

After all, the area had a master plan, a Clark County long-range guide to development that seemed to ensure that no tall buildings would ever come between their home and the mountains.

But like thousands of other residents in the unincorporated county, they have found that master plans don't mean much. The Wrzesinskis' back windows now face the towering cinderblock wall of a drug store under construction.

But two new faces on the Clark County Commission -- and the threat of the Legislature imposing reforms on the county's master-planning process -- may make similar fates less common.

Rory Reid and Mark James, incoming county commissioners, have worked for law firms involved with high-profile master-plan amendments or "nonconforming uses," simple waivers to the existing plans.

But Reid, a Democrat and an associate with Lionel Sawyer and Collins, and James, a Republican who said he is resigning his position with the law firm of Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner and Renshaw, say they want to see the master plans strengthened.

"We need to do something that increases the public's confidence in the integrity of the system," Reid said. "Clearly that should be a priority.

"Exactly what form that takes, I don't know," he said. "I just know that something needs to be done."

The pair of newcomers were elected last November, and join three other commissioners on the seven-person board in promising greater adherence to the land-use plans.

For the last year, Commissioners Bruce Woodbury, Yvonne Atkinson Gates and Chip Maxfield have fought a losing battle to uphold existing master plans from amendments and waivers that have been granted literally hundreds of times.

On the other side have generally been a bloc of commissioners composed of Erin Kenny, Myrna Williams and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey. A swing vote on many of the most contentious issues was Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, who leaves office after losing his bid for Congress in November.

Kenny, like her colleagues a frequent recipient of campaign contributions from developers and the law firms who represent them, has been fiercely criticized by activists because of her support of some of the most controversial projects in recent years -- including the project sitting behind the Wrzesinskis' house.

Kenny, who lost her campaign for lieutenant governor in November and formally leaves office Monday, did not return phone calls last week. In the past she has frequently and emphatically stated that she supports projects and master-plan changes based on the changing circumstances within a neighborhood.

At times the developers have been on opposite sides of master-plan issues, and the commissioners they have supported have mirrored their positions.

Last month, for example, the commission approved a master-plan change that allowed commercial development on land leased by the county to golf-course developer Billy Walters.

Kenny supported the change. But Atiknson Gates, once the business partner of a competing developer, vehemently opposed the change.

Herrera, who has gotten a job with the Molasky group of development companies, said the commingling of money, land and politics has been a source of skepticism and criticism.

But that criticism is usually unfair, he said.

"Yeah, I voted with developers sometimes, but I voted with the residents a lot too," Herrera said. "We don't get credit for that.

"There's a lot of factors that have to be considered in these important zoning decisions -- the need to protect residents, to keep the economy moving and to abide by appropriate land-use principals," he said. "It's a balancing act and it's a difficult one."

Whole neighborhoods have turned out to battle such land-use changes, but their pleas, along with recommendations of Clark County staff and community advisory boards, have frequently been rejected.

The Wrzesinskis and their neighbors are veterans of one such battle. Opponents of the drug store and an adjacent office complex at the corner of Buffalo Drive and Desert Inn Road gathered almost 400 petition signatures from the nearby residents, attended numerous meetings and wrote and spoke passionately against the commercial project.

But last February the county commission approved it.

"We could have gotten a thousand signatures," Cheryl Wrzesinski said. "It was a done deal."

Garry Hayes, one of the few local attorneys who will represent neighbors fighting a county zoning decision, said the story is increasingly common. He also believes it is dangerous.

"When you piecemeal the master plan, you basically throw long-range planning out the window," Hayes aid. "You basically have no long-range planning in Clark County."

Accelerated pace

The pace of the changes has accelerated over the last year, reaching a crescendo of controversy in November and December.

"These last two months have been a joke," Hayes said. "Anybody who has watched this process over the last two months has to realize that something has to change.

"Master plans, staff recommendations, the desires of the commissioner representing an area, mean nothing. Less than nothing," he said. "There is something seriously wrong with the decisions being made."

County staff members in planning and public works have grumbled for years that their recommendations are ignored by the majority of the panel.

Even the county's department leaders have expressed concern with the lack of substantial master plans.

"All of the different entities and departments that have to plan and budget for future growth have to know how areas are developing," said Barbara Ginoulias, assistant planning director and the head of the county's zoning agency.

Changes to long-range plans will impact schools, roads, water and sewer plans and just about every other service that is routinely provided to residents by the county or other government agencies, she said.

The issue directly affects about half of Clark County's 1.5 million people, since half live in the unincorporated areas of the county. But those living in the cities also are affected, both because the land in the cities is always close by the county's jurisdiction and because many services overlap city and county borders.

"It can be problematic if drastic changes are approved," Ginoulias said. "If it's a major change, you're going to significantly change the face of a community."

Under the county's Title 30 zoning and land-use law, the plans are not supposed to be so easily changed. But changes are routinely approved by the county commission, often over the objections of local residents and the county's own citizen advisory boards.

Ginoulias said she does not have the staff resources to study the thousands of requested master-plan waivers and amendments that have come before the commission to see how many were ultimately approved.

But Evan Blythin, chairman of the Red Rock Citizens Advisory Committee, received a leaked document from the county planning department that said 96.5 percent of nonconforming changes were approved in 1999 and 2000. He believes the pace of those approvals has accelerated, especially late in 2002.

"What makes it hellish is that Title 30 says the commissioners are supposed to protect the master plans," Blythin said.

He supports a reform that would only allow plan changes if they are approved by the local advisory boards.

Also on board with the reform process if Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, who reportedly had strident differences with outgoing Commissioner Kenny late in 2002 over land-use and zoning issues.

Kenny, elected four years ago on a platform that included greater zoning protections for neighborhoods, became a supporter of many of the most contentious master-plan amendments and nonconforming use requests before the county commission.

On the defensive

Kenny, together with Kincaid-Chauncey and Williams, defended sometimes unpopular decisions as being in the best interests of the community.

High-density residential developments near McCarran International Airport were needed to supplement affordable housing; industrial development on land planned for open space was needed to bring jobs closer to people; and commercial development of all kinds was needed to serve the constantly growing population, the pro-development bloc argued.

Those arguments make sense to Greg Borgel, a land-use consultant and former head of county planning who regularly represents developers coming before the commission.

"I've been doing this for 30 years, with the county and outside the county," Borgel said. "The system is not flawed, or is not flawed any more than any other system that would have to deal with the astounding growth patterns of Clark County.

"You cannot devise a system to deal with 7,000 people coming here every month," he said.

Master plans, by their very nature, take a snapshot of an area as it is. But the flood of newcomers means that development plans must be "in a constant state of evolution," Borgel said. By the time a master plan is adopted by the county commission, "the facts have changed so dramatically that it is already out of date."

Many newcomers rely on master plans to determine where they buy or build homes, he said.

"They don't realize that they are the cause for the changes," he said.

Herrera said that any reforms would have to take into account the changing landscape of the Las Vegas Valley and give the commission flexibility to deal with those factors.

"In some of the townships, the master plan has not been updated in nearly a decade," he said. "Obviously the community has changed."

Herrera said critics ignore the commission when it has rejected zoning requests that conform to master plans but may not be compatible with nearby residential uses.

"There has to be a recognition that sometimes the master plan doesn't work," he said. "Strict adherence to the master plan sometimes leads to absurd zoning decisions. You could have heavy industrial uses next to very rural residential properties."

Borgel said he and everyone else working with the existing system are eyeing the proposed master-plan reforms warily.

The proposals range from the mild to what would be, for Southern Nevada, revolutionary. Some reforms would require every nonconforming request to get an accompanying master-plan amendment, a system in place now for the city of Las Vegas. That would add a step to the process for developers but would not bar the changes.

Also on the table would be a requirement that master plan amendments come before the county commission only on a periodic basis, once, twice or four times a year.

Freezing plans

Some would like to see a system that would freeze master plans in place for a number of years, some sort of a "supermajority" on the board for any changes, or other significant restrictions on the ability of developers to change the plan in place.

The specific changes are still under development by county staff in consultation with commissioners, community activists, developers and other stakeholders, Reilly said.

Those proposals are being fleshed out and could come before the board later this month, when the county planning staff -- which would likely write whatever ordinances come before the commission -- will seek formal guidance from their bosses on the board.

Woodbury, who has seen the population of the county more than double since he became a commissioner in 1981, has been a consistent voice on the board for greater deference to existing land-use plans. He supports deep reform.

"We ought to amend these master plans or review them every five years," Woodbury said. "And I don't think you should be able to come in with a master-plan amendment to get around the regular master-plan process.

"The master plans have been gutted far too many times," he said. "Far too often nonconforming zone changes are approved and the wishes of the residents are overridden.

"We have to be able to change that," Woodbury said. "I think the majority of the commission as well as the staff are committed to doing that."

What Woodbury does not want to see is a change imposed on the county by the state, which many fear will occur if the county does not reform the process.

Several area legislators who have heard from angry constituents say they are ready to step in.

"They either need to clean up their own house or we can do it for them," said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas. "If they don't take care of it, there are quite a bit of bill drafts that could restrict their master-plan amendment practices."

State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, agrees. She said a bill to protect the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and its surrounding master plan could be amended to include the entire county.

In the past, she has introduced legislation that would allow master-plan changes only once a year and restrict nonconforming waivers.

"That could be resurrected," she said.

The Wrzesinskis know that any reforms will come too late for them, but they hope the push to change the master-plan process will curb even more changes in their neighborhood.

They fear that the drug store and office complex could open the door for more retail shops and services in their once-quiet subdivision.

Dave Wrzesinski said residents throughout the valley, and especially in fast-growing areas, will heed the warning that the zoning situation in the county now is very unstable.

He gestured at the men constructing the store a few feet away from his back door.

"You used to see a nice vista of hills," he said. "We used to enjoy being in the back yard. Now guys are looking in through our back windows."

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