County seeks support on land-use changes

Monday, Oct. 6, 2003 | 11:22 a.m.

County planners are hoping that residents and developers in upcoming meetings will support policy changes that would protect master plans for unincorporated urban areas.

Residents of Spring Valley Township, in the southwest corner of the the urban area, will join developers and planning staff in the first of a series of meetings that should produce an updated land-use, or master, plan. Not only will the update serve as a new plan for the swiftly growing area, but advocates hope the plan will be harder to change than earlier land-use guides.

The reformed process makes it more important for residents, landowners and developers to get involved early in the process, county staff and elected policymakers say.

"Our new ordinance gave us some tools to strengthen the integrity of master plans," Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, a strong advocate for the policy changes, said last week. "Now we need to get input from residents about where the homes, businesses and parks should be.

"This is an opportunity for residents to shape the destiny of their neighborhoods and the place in the greater Las Vegas Valley."

The County Commission earlier this year changed the master-planning process in response to widespread voter dissatisfaction with the old regimen, which allowed developers to make frequent and sometimes bitterly opposed zoning amendments contrary to the plans. By 1999, about 97 percent of all zone changes that did not conform to the existing land-use plans were approved by the commission.

Such requests are called nonconforming, and are the bane of neighborhood activists throughout the urban, unincorporated county.

Over the next five years, the county's 11 master plans will go through the same updating process. Once they are updated they will be harder to change.

Among the changes to county policy approved last spring:

The most difficult hurdle, however, may be one that comes into play Nov. 18 for all nonconforming requests, regardless of when the master plan was updated. After that day, all nonconforming requests will require a two-thirds majority of county commissioners to pass.

Spring Valley was selected as the first to be updated because it has been the epicenter of some of the most contentious land-use battles in recent memory. The county commissioners earlier this year directed staff to update the Spring Valley, Enterprise and the area from Sloan to Primm first.

With new residents and businesses still flocking to Spring Valley, the 60-square-mile area was given the priority.

"That's an area that's experiencing a lot of growth," said Rod Allison, assistant planning manager for the county.

Jory Stewart, county planning manager, said the area is home to land-use conflict because of the confluence of two factors: existing residential communities, many of them years old and with low housing densities, and desire to develop what land is available in the area.

The focus for the planners is to get people involved -- people from all sectors of the affected community. They argue that only through that involvement will the reformed process be successful.

"This has to be an open, inclusive, public-participation process," Stewart said.

Land-use attorney Chris Kaempfer, who has represented developers during some of the most contentious battles before the commission, said the builders of homes and businesses in Clark County are comfortable with most of the master-plan policy changes -- but not the two-thirds requirement.

Last month, District Court Judge Valerie Adair upheld the county rule against a challenge launched by the Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association. Kaempfer represented the homebuilders and said the issue is probably not over.

"We are seriously considering appealing," Kaempfer said. "We are anxious to get involved in the process, we just believe the two-thirds rule is contrary to the rule of law and contrary to common sense."

He emphasized that developers will work with the revamped process on both the general master-planning process and on specific plans for particular properties.

"What we hope to do is fashion something that protects existing residences but at the same time craft something that provides enough room to allow for growth, for those citizens who surely are going to be coming here over the next three to five years," Kaempfer said.

The reason that he and the developers he often represents have so frequently sought and received nonconforming zone changes is the population growth in the county quickly makes old plans obsolete, Kaempfer said.

"We're talking about plans that are five, seven, 10 years old in a community that adds 6,000 people a month," he said. "You have to make allowances for that. ... I get no great thrill to have to stand before people and ask for a nonconforming zone change that violates an existing master plan.

"That doesn't mean there haven't been developers that have asked for too much density, but for the most part what you have seen is a reaction to this incredible growth."

Carolyn Edwards, a Spring Valley resident, has often been at odds with Kaempfer and other developers. One battle she lost was in 2000, when former Commissioner Erin Kenny led a fight to approve a pharmacy and convenience store as a nonconforming zone change.

Edwards believes that approval significantly and negatively affected the value of her home, and the experience pushed her into regular attendance at the county zoning meetings. Mark James, Erin Kenny's successor on the commission, has appointed her to the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, a group that will advise the county commission on the Spring Valley plan update and every other update.

Edwards vowed to participate in the revisions to the Spring Valley plan, but as a citizen, not a steering committee member.

"These meetings are hugely important," she said. "It sets the land-use expectations for the next five years, and lots of things could change.

"People interested in knowing what land near them will be zoned for need to be involved," Edwards said.

She admitted that the process could be tedious. At least nine meetings will come over the next 13 months devoted solely to the updated plan, including a introductory workshop scheduled Oct. 18. The Spring Valley Town Advisory Board, Clark County Planning Commission and county commission also will receive numerous updates on the progress of the update before the county commission approves the final product, probably in December 2004.

But failure to observe or participate is dangerous, Edwards said.

"People could be surprised by what comes in," she said. "It will be hard to object to a zoning request that conforms to the land-use plan. Every time these come up for renewal the whole community should pay attention."