Plan may give lift to Coyote Springs project

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2004 | 11:29 a.m.

The Clark County Commission may approve an unusual arrangement to help development proceed at the 40,000-acre Coyote Springs project about 60 miles north of Las Vegas.

County officials are set to consider a designating Coyote Springs as a"general improvement district."

The designation would allow Coyote Springs Investment, the development company headed by Reno lawyer Harvey Whittemore, to provide its own utility services to the area. The company, which is preparing an environmental impact study to receive a federal permit for the project, hopes to build 50,000 homes and several golf courses on the site, which straddles the Clark-Lincoln County line.

Future residents of the improvement district would pay the county's base tax rate, but could be assessed additional taxes that would go specifically to services for the area. Those taxes couldn't be above the maximum property tax rate in unincorporated parts of the county.

Nevada law allows developers to be responsible for services in such general improvement districts, although only two public agencies -- the Big Bend Water District in Laughlin and the Clark County Water Reclamation District, which provides sewer services to the urban area -- have been approved as general improvement districts, said Phil Rosenquist, a planner with Clark County Development Services.

The Coyote Springs project would be the first residential master-planned community in Clark County to receive the improvement district status, he said. However, several similar residential projects have been created in Northern Nevada, including a general improvement district serving Incline Village on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Rosenquist said the arrangement is similar to the one that allowed the development of Walt Disney World on 25,000 acres in Florida.

About 13,000 acres of the Coyote Springs project are in Clark County. A development agreement between the company and Clark County approved in December 2002 requires the developer to provide public facilities at the company's cost, among them fire stations, parks and a police substation.

Whittemore's company original asked that it control a spectrum of 11 services, but the county said it needed more detail on how the other services, which under state law could include fire protection and television transmitting facilities, would be provided before staff would recommend approval, according to county documents.

The services that would be provided by the developer under the agreement include electric light and power, water and sewer. However, Rosenquist said, the company could come back with an amendment asking that it be allowed to take over other services commonly provided by the county and sister county agencies.

"The purpose of the GID is to provide for the future development out there, the spectrum of services out there that people would expect," Rosenquist said.

"Over time, as they get residents up there, we would imagine that the service plan would be amended to allow a whole lot of things ... basically, they would be providing and operating their own infrastructure."

The law would put first a board of trustees and then an elected board of residents in charge of the district, essentially creating a shadow government to provide basic municipal services.

Rosenquist said the advantage for the county is that the long distance from the urban core would make it expensive to provide those services.

"It's in such a remote location that the county would have a difficult time providing services up there," Rosenquist said.

He said the county would still have to approve the service arrangements. If introduced as planned by the county commission Monday, the proposal to create the general improvement district would go to the Clark County Planning Commission for public comment and a recommendation Jan. 20 and back to the board for final action Feb. 1.

Pardee Homes, a national home builder with a substantial presence in the Las Vegas market, is the partner with Whittemore's company for the construction of the Coyote Springs community.

Klif Andrews, Pardee vice president, said the project is two years away from building homes, but construction of golf courses could start this spring.

"We are starting in Clark County because that is the portion closest to Las Vegas," he said. "The reality is, they'll be grading the golf course by March or April."

Ultimately, the project would include hotels, schools, parks and other amenities for residents and visitors, Andrews said.

"It's really like Anthem was in Henderson, only triple that," he said.

He said the county will still approve all the construction plans.

"The county very much still has oversight into what goes on," Andrews said. The project has sparked opposition from environmentalists, who argue that the project would lead to long commutes for workers and is located in an environmentally sensitive area.

Environmentalists opposed the original deal that transferred the former Bureau of Land Management property to a rocket-production company in 1988. No rockets were ever produced or tested at the site, and Areojet Corp. sold the land to Whittemore a decade later, again angering environmentalists.

Jane Feldman, an activist with the local arm of the Sierra Club, worked for several years as a member of a committee drawing up a habitat conservation plan that would protect the endangered desert tortoise around Coyote Springs.

"The best environmental solution is not to have Coyote Springs built at all," Feldman said. "You're making a city by itself 40-some miles away from the nearest infrastructure (in the Moapa Valley)."

Last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn signed legislation that allows general improvement districts to provide for the protection of endangered species, such as the desert tortoise.

Whittemore said the project partners would eventually come back and request from the county additional authority to maintain the habitat for the rare reptile. "This is not the last step," he said of the creation of the district. "This is the first step."

"One of the features that is being planned in the community is work force housing, a work force housing plan," Andrews said. "Coyote Springs will be affordable compared to Las Vegas."

Mike Ford, an adviser to Whittemore's project, said that the company is moving forward with the project in both Clark and Lincoln counties.

"On the Clark County portion we are virtually done with all the permitting," he said.

The Lincoln County portion has been more problematic because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has required an environmental impact study, which can take years to complete and requires opportunities for public comment.

The Corps is involved because water from the project site could flow into the Muddy River in northeast Clark County, Ford said. Andrews and Whittemore said they do not expect any significant problems because of the required federal permit.