County panel rejects towers

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 | 10:44 a.m.

A Clark County advisory board rejected a request to build two 300-foot towers at Durango Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway, but the effort to build the towers is likely to continue.

Developers under the banner of Paramount Professional Plaza want the towers, two of dozens planned throughout the urban area, as part of a mixed-use "urban village" in the area. Some neighbors and community activists oppose the condominium towers, arguing that they would overload infrastructure in the area north of Rhodes Ranch and would block views of the Spring Mountains to the west.

Among those who came to argue against the project at the Spring Valley Town Advisory Board was Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, who is running for the county commission seat now held by Lynette Boggs McDonald.

Goldwater said the towers would be "two buildings as tall as football fields out in the middle of nowhere," that the area is not well served by public transportation, that traffic from the 506 housing units in the proposed towers would overload roads and "other growth-related resources."

"The neighbors are appropriately, appropriately scared to death," he said.

Boggs McDonald also has expressed concerns about the height and impact of the project.

Opponents and town board members also raised concerns that the project would bring more children to burden already overcrowded schools in the area.

Tabitha Fiddyment, an attorney representing the developers, said the project's backers have met and will continue to meet with those opposing the project. She noted that the opposition is focused on the height of the two central buildings. However, the condominiums would provide luxury "second or third homes," she said, and few if any of the owners would have children.

"We don't feel this kind of demographic will result in any school impact in the surrounding area," Fiddyment said.

Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, a member of Scenic Nevada, a nonprofit group dedicated to keeping buildings and signs out of the views to the mountains, said the problem is the height of the buildings.

"We're very concerned with the height issue here," she said. "Any precedent for 300 feet ... is going to result in more requests. I don't think we can let this go forward for this height."

The board members agreed, on the issue of the buildings' height as well as on the local service infrastructure concern. The board recommended the mixed-use urban village zoning, but denied the special-use permit needed for the 300-foot towers. The vote was 3-0.

The same board earlier in the evening meeting approved a 124-foot hotel as part of a mixed-use development a half-mile away planned by developer Randy Black Sr.

Black's son, Randy Black Jr., is an investor in the planned Paramount project with the two towers.

The issue next goes to the Clark County Planning Commission on Aug. 5. Then, if there are no delays, it goes to the full Clark County Planning Commission Sept. 8.

Fiddyment said she did not know what if any changes the developers will make before it goes to those boards.

"We intend to continue to work with the neighbors," she said.