Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.
High-rise condos may one day be a pervasive feature of the Las Vegas skyline, but Clark County commissioners are asking for more guidance about where they should be built.
On the same day the commission considered 500-foot and 550-foot high rises, it also directed planning staff to form a stakeholders group to consider height limitations and appropriate locations for future skyscrapers.
In the past several months, the commission and other county boards have deliberated the fate of about a dozen structures of 300 feet or more.
Most of the high-rise, mixed-use condominium projects have been approved, but several outside the core Strip resort area have sparked community opposition.
On Wednesday, the commission knocked a 550-foot tower proposed for Las Vegas Boulevard and Cactus Avenue down to 364 feet. A 500-foot tower at Las Vegas Boulevard and Riviera Boulevard was approved. Developers of a 500-foot tower at Industrial Road and Harmon Avenue pulled their request from the agenda in the face of opposition from the community and county planning staff.
Greg Borgel, a land-use consultant representing applicant Bijan Anjomi on the shortened, 550-foot effort, said he could live with the shorter tower, but it wasn't the best option.
At 550 feet, "it is a very elegant tower," he told the commission. "It doesn't interfere with anyone's view and is an enhancement to the skyline. When you bring it down, it gets bulkier.
"The reason people ask for height is not to overbuild the site -- they do it for design."
Some neighbors, however, complained that the project was too tall.
"The height is really a concern," said Walt Tamberlane, who lives in a nearby rural preservation district. He said the project would overshadow his and his neighbors' homes.
"Five hundred and fifty feet, in my opinion, is ridiculous," he said.
The commission instead approved the tower at 364 feet, a height that the planning staff also had recommended.
The commission also approved a 500-foot, 35-story mixed-use project for the Las Vegas Boulevard at Riviera location. County planning staff and the Winchester Town Advisory Board had both recommended that height for the building, which will be in the core of the Strip.
No one spoke against that project. Attorney Chris Kaempfer, representing developer Nevada Development Partners, asked the commission not to delay consideration of the land-use approval while the county formulates a new policy on high rises.
The commissioners agreed that not only Wednesday's applications, but others in the month-long application process should not be held or governed by the policy that emerges from the county's nascent look at high-rise issues.
"Once a project has reached this point with all the approval and etcetera, I don't think we have the right to suddenly change the rules," Commissioner Myrna Williams said. "I'm very concerned that we don't let people come in, make applications, make investments, then (county commissioners) suddenly turn around and say they can't do it."
Because any building taller than 100 feet requires commission approval, the board still has the discretion to say no to a bad project, commissioners noted.
Rod Allison, Clark County assistant planning manager, told the commissioners that a new committee of "stakeholders" with an interest in the issue of high-rises should come back to the commission in 60 to 90 days with policy recommendations on location and heights. He told the commission that the group of about 10 people would work with the Clark County Growth Task Force, which is tackling similar issues but will not produce policy recommendations before the end of the year.
Several requests from community activists were not incorporated into the commission's direction to staff. Lisa Mayo-De Riso, a board member of Scenic Nevada, a nonprofit group, asked that proposals already in the planning-approval pipeline be held until after any new policy is adopted.
She noted that a proposal to build two 275-foot towers at Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway is scheduled to come before the county commission Sept. 8. Her group opposes those high-rises, arguing that the west side of the valley should have lower height restrictions.
Borgel, who has represented a host of the skyscraper requests, said it would be unfair to apply the rules to buildings already in the process of getting approvals. Commissioners agreed.
Carolyn Edwards, a Spring Valley community activist, asked that at least two citizens be included in the 10-person stakeholders group that Allison is forming.
Commissioners did not directly respond to Edwards request, but Allison, following the commission meeting, said the committee would be diverse. Among those on the committee would be representatives of the Regional Transportation Commission, the Clark County School District, a town advisory board, the Clark County steering committee for master plans, and three architects representing firms that build high rises, mid-range buildings of a dozen stories as well as smaller structures, he said.
He said one or two citizen-activists might be included on the panel, for which a meeting date has not been set.
Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey had several more requests of the planning staff. She wanted to ensure that developers and her colleagues have a voice in any new policies before they go to a public hearing.
"I hope that when we're going through all these regulations and things that we do get some input from those that are building them," she said. "We don't want to set anybody up for failure."
Kincaid-Chauncey asked for a briefing three or four weeks before the issue comes before the commission for action "to see if it's going in the direction we want it to go."
She added that she does not like "correcting" policy recommendations in the public commission meetings.
Edwards said that if commissioners raise objections to the policy recommendations coming from the stakeholders group, then the public has a right to know what those are.
"It would be nice if that briefing and those objections were discussed in a public forum," Edwards said.
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