Court rules on county master plan

Cy Ryan and Launce Rake

Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005 | 1:18 a.m.

By Cy Ryan and Launce Rake

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled today that Clark County cannot require a two-thirds majority vote to make major changes to its master plan.

The court, in a decision overturning the ruling of District Judge Valerie Adair, said the county has no authority from the state to require a supermajority vote.

Clark County and developers had asked for judicial review of the rule.

The Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association argued against the rule. The county had the support of citizen groups such as the Northwest Citizens Association, Citizens for Smart Growth and Concerned Citizens of Logandale.

The Clark County Commission in April 2003 approved an ordinance requiring a comprehensive update of the master plan at least once every five years. The ordinance prohibited the commissioners from considering nonconforming zoning change applications within two years of the master plan.

The ordinance allows that after two years the commission could approve a nonconforming change only by a two-thirds vote.

The court said state law gives county commissions the authority to provide for zoning regulations and restrictions. But there is nothing in the law on zoning that requires a supermajority approval in any instance.

The decision, written by Justice James Hardesty, said, "The Legislature intended only simple majority approval of nonconforming zone change applications."

Clark County and the citizen groups argued that state law authorized the county commissioners to impose the supermajority approval because the county had broad authority over zoning issues.

The Supreme Court said that argument could mean the county might be able to impose a vote of 80 or 90 percent majority in zoning matters.

Hardesty said the Clark County ordinance imposing the supermajority approval violates the state law on zone change regulations. He said the state law "cannot be read to expand the authority of the county commissioners to impose a greater voting requirement than that mandated by the Legislature's silence."

The change was one of a host instituted in 2003 and 2004 that modified what some critics viewed as a process overly tilted toward developers.

Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, an attorney, supported the change, but he said the constitutionality of the revision was always in doubt.

"There's always been questions regarding the propriety of requiring a supermajority," Reid said. "There was a question as to whether or not this was constitutional. We agreed to bring this forward for judicial review."

But the impact of the Supreme Court decision will be limited, Reid said.

"I don't think it will have much practical effect," he said. "Because of the way we changed the system, there's so much more practical input than there used to be.

"I don't know that we had many instances where it came down to the supermajority requirement. Most of the votes are unanimous."

Thom Reilly, Clark County manager, said county officials are not even sure if the supermajority has been required in the last several years. The county will do a review to see if it has been needed.

"It will be interesting to see whether it has even been an issue since it was enacted," he said.

Reilly said the issue is another one in which the lack of home rule, which the state grants cities, hobbles the counties. Without home rule, the county needs specific legislative approval to set up such rules, he said.

If necessary, the county could bring the rules to the Legislature in 2007 as a bill to establish the rule, he added.