Planners reject new DMV site

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2004 | 9:51 a.m.

The North Las Vegas Planning Commission on Wednesday voted against the Department of Motor Vehicles' preferred site for a new office, citing problems raised by neighbors and commission members.

So the DMV will appeal to the North Las Vegas City Council for permission to build on the site, 34 acres off Decatur Boulevard north of the Las Vegas Beltway, DMV Director Ginny Lewis.

She said she did not know when the council will consider the matter.

Commission members and neighbors said the center would bring too much traffic and noise to the growing residential area. They were especially opposed to a plan to also put a commercial driver's license test course on the property. DMV officials agreed to drop that from the proposal during the Wednesday meeting at City Hall.

The proposed Decatur center is intended to replace an existing DMV office on Carey Avenue near Rancho Drive. The DMV's lease on the Carey property expires in December 2005, and without a new center the Las Vegas Valley would be left with only three DMV offices, Lewis said. The Carey office averages about 1,000 customers a day, she said.

The property on Decatur is federal land, and the DMV is asking to lease the property. North Las Vegas has protested the requested lease.

Commission members and some of the nine people who spoke against the proposed site asked that the DMV look elsewhere.

But Lewis said this property is the only place the DMV could hope to open a center by the time the Carey office closes.

This is because the DMV would be able to lease the Bureau of Land Management property cheaply, and the DMV does not have enough money to buy land somewhere else, she said.

To purchase other property would mean waiting until the 2005 Legislature for funding, Lewis said.