Town board OKs new plans for Walters’ project

Wednesday, March 12, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

A Clark County advisory board moved a long-running feud over a development project in southwest Las Vegas one step closer to resolution Tuesday.

The Spring Valley Town Advisory Board recommended zoning that would allow developer Billy Walters to build a combined golf course, shopping center and medical office complex on Clark County land. But both supporters and opponents of the controversial project recapped familiar arguments in the year-long battle.

Community activist Lisa Mayo-DeRiso said a flood of applications for commercial uses in the neighborhood at Warm Springs Road and Durango Drive has people concerned about traffic. She asked the board to recommend less intensive commercial zoning.

"That would be an outrageous breaking of faith with the whole process that has been fully debated and decided by two County Commissions on four occasions," land-use consultant Greg Borgel responded.

The Clark County Commission on Feb. 5 passed underlying zoning for the project that included 25 acres for a shopping center, 15 acres for the medical office complex and about 200 acres for a golf course. The move was supposed to resolve the long-standing clash between supporters and opponents.

The decision reduced the total amount of commercial development, but still gave Walters the ability to build a shopping center at the site.

But some of the same faces attended the Tuesday night meeting in Spring Valley. Chris Peitsch, a resident who lives nearby the proposed project, asked the board to require Walters to develop all three segments of the project concurrently.

Peitsch said residents are concerned that because of the drought that has hit the region, no golf course will be built.

"If the golf course isn't going to be there, at least in the short term, then I don't understand what we're doing," Peitsch said.

Karen Veljkovic, who has land adjacent to the county property and has supported the project through the long debate, said the town board should go the other way -- restore the original, larger commercial zoning approved by last year's County Commission and then overturned by the new commission last month.

The Spring Valley advisory board rejected both notions, instead sticking with the recommendations from the Clark County planning staff.

Advisory board chairman Jim Shibler said the zoning met all of the requirements set by the County Commission in February and conforms to the new, amended master plan for the area. The vote to accept the zoning recommendations from county planning staff was 5-0.

Borgel said Walters plans to develop the golf course as soon as a sewage-treatment facility to bring treated water to the site is up and running.

Walters has an existing lease with the county to develop the golf course but has agreed to negotiate a new lease for the portions of the property that would be used for commercial purposes.

Clark County Aviation Department officials said earlier this week that they will start the negotiating process after the final zoning is approved.