Overturned supermajority ruling may have little effect

Stephen Curran

Friday, Aug. 12, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

A day after the Nevada Supreme Court threw out a Clark County ordinance requiring a two-thirds majority for all changes to its master plan, county planners and lawyers on both sides of the issue say they have yet to find a single decision made irrelevant by the ruling.

County Planning Manager Chuck Pulsipher said Thursday afternoon that he hopes a thorough review of recent nonconforming zone changes launched within hours of Justice James Hardesty's decision that morning might jog his memory of any commission decisions now thrown into question.

"In trying to recall how many applications were defeated because of the ordinance, I can remember none," Pulsipher said. "I don't know how much of a real impact it (the Supreme Court decision) will have."

A detailed analysis outlining any potential challenges is expected to reach Pulsipher's desk early next week, he said.

The provision that barred the commission from passing a nonconforming zone change with any less than a two-thirds majority grew out of an April 2003 ordinance that required a comprehensive update to the master plan at least every five years.

The master plan acts as a kind of blueprint that dictates for planners an underlying land-use policy governing zone changes and setting development plans. A nonconforming zone change is a separate request for a change that runs counter to guidelines spelled out in the plan.

District Judge Valerie Adair upheld the ordinance in September 2003, saying that the state Legislature left zoning procedures open, meaning the commission could enact its own guidelines.

Hardesty on Thursday said that the county ordinance violated a state law governing zoning changes.

In an interview Thursday morning, commission chairman Rory Reid said doubt over whether the ordinance was constitutional prompted the county to launch a judicial review of the rule.

Reid, who supported the ordinance, said frequent unanimous votes meant the court's decision was unlikely to undo any previous commission votes.

The ordinance, championed by at least three neighborhood groups that had actively lobbied the commission to enact the supermajority rule, had sparked the ire of developers who claimed it created an unfair hurdle.

Attorney Garry Hayes, who represented the Northwest Citizens Association, Citizens for Smart Growth and Concerned Citizens of Logandale in supporting the ordinance, said he disagreed with the ruling but that it "resolves the issue."

"I think it needs to take extraordinary circumstances to avoid the master plan and I think the supermajority keeps that from happening," Hayes said.

Hayes said he supported changes requiring more frequent changes to the master plan. Before the five-year update was mandated, outdated zoning plans routinely stymied projects that would have to come before the commission as complex, nonconforming zone changes, he said.

Chris Kaempfer, an attorney who represented the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association in opposing the motion, said he did not know of any specific project blocked by the ordinance but that its defeat "came down to a fundamental fairness principle."

"The majority rules and the supermajority doesn't," he said. "If the majority says somethings good or bad, that majority should rule."