Growth panel studies past efforts

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

Clark County's new growth task force met for the second time Tuesday, and this time received an overview of state and local efforts to deal with the issue.

Recent efforts litter the growth-management history of the fastest growing part of the fastest growing state in the nation. The efforts documented go back to 1997, when the private, nonprofit think tank the Urban Land Institute sponsored a "growth summit" to bring together people from academia, industry and government to look at Southern Nevada's rapid rate of growth and suggest ways to manage it.

A succession of government efforts followed, all with what local government staffers said were mixed results. The newest task force again brings together residents, academic experts, local industry and other interest groups in a yearlong effort to recommend ways to better manage growth.

"There is still a sense there is a lot of work left undone," said Leonard "Pat" Goodall, task force chairman and former University of Nevada, Las Vegas president and management professor.

Goodall said the Clark County Commission chartered the task force, and the seven elected commissioners want recommendations that will move the region in the right direction.

One of the things the task force must do is look at what needs to be done -- both from a list of things that were not accomplished by the earlier efforts and because of new challenges, especially five years of drought -- and come back with a list of priorities, Goodall said.

Among the earlier efforts was a 1997-1999 legislative initiative called the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority, which was charged with identifying growth-related needs and bringing recommendations to the Legislature. Its mandate was limited to managing the impacts of growth.

One of the planning authority's key recommendations was that the Legislature create a regional planning group to bring together regional governments. In 1998, the state government created the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, which continues to operate.

The regional planning coalition's mission is to coordinate planning, but not necessarily to directly manage growth, planning coalition staffer Ed James told the task force. However, the coalition has been a forum for regional planning of parks and open space and a place to encourage other smart-growth-related planning practices.

"It has been a very cooperative effort ever since the start of the process," James said.

Some elected leaders from Clark County's cities have argued that the planning coalition already handles growth-related issues, suggesting that the task force might not be needed.

Jane Feldman, the Sierra Club's representative on the board, noted that the problem with the planning coalition and other efforts is that they lacked real authority.

She said the task force needs to consider whether a regional government with "bigger teeth" might be needed.

"We should have some discussion about our regional government body and what level of authority it should have," Feldman said.

The task force also heard about the downside of any attempts to artificially check the rate of growth in urban Las Vegas. Analysts Jeremy Aguero and Guy Hobbs, who also is a task force member, presented the results of a study they produced for the Southern Nevada Water Authority earlier this year.

The study, which the water authority board asked for in response to critics who said water shortages could be eliminated by ending home construction, found deep negative economic impacts would come from shutting off new growth.

In one scenario, which the analysts described as "moderate," the region would lose $53.6 billion in labor income, about 12 percent of total income, over 13 years by government block to new growth -- or potentially any other sudden move to stop growth.

"The growth-interruption report shows you can't just arbitrarily turn off growth without having some negative consequences," Goodall said.

The report's conclusions also suggest that the region not only shouldn't turn off growth in a sudden event, but also needs to prepare for a long-awaited natural downturn in growth rates or for some outside incident that could affect growth rates here, he said.

"You can't predict a 9-11 event, but you certainly know they might occur," Goodall said.