Plan to annex 3,600 acres delayed

Wednesday, March 2, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

Henderson's planned annexation of 3,600 acres in unincorporated Clark County came to a sudden stop Tuesday when the Clark County Commission refused to give its approval for the effort.

The city has planned for months to take the land owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The BLM, in letters to Henderson City Manager Philip Speight, has said it will go along with the annexation if the county agrees to the move.

In Tuesday's commission meeting, commissioners said they would not approve the annexation without an agreement in place between the two local governments to manage growth and infrastructure issues in the south county.

A four-year agreement between Henderson and Clark County that guided development in the southeast part of the valley expired in January, and without a new agreement in place, the county's plans for development could bump up against Henderson's.

Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald said a new interlocal agreement would have to be crafted.

"I want to make sure that no actions are kind of trumping out the process we are about to embark upon," she said.

Boggs McDonald has pushed for a comprehensive planning effort for the 30 miles of southern Clark County running from the edge of the urban area to the California border.

That area would include 17,000 acres planned for the county's Ivanpah Valley airport and surrounding non-residential development. County staffers, among them Aviation Department Director Randy Walker, also are concerned that the county maintain a corridor on the east side of Interstate 15 to bring utilities and other services to the planned airport.

"We do have some concerns with this proposed annexation in terms of how we will get a utility corridor down there," Walker said. "We'd been hoping we could sit down and work with Henderson."

Walker said a proposed regional helicopter port for tours to the Grand Canyon also could be affected by the annexation.

Commission Chairman Rory Reid, whose district includes parts of both Henderson and nearby unincorporated Clark County, said the development of the 3,600 acres could affect air quality as well. He formally directed the staff to send the letter to the BLM objecting to the annexation.

BLM staffers said Tuesday that the issue was strictly a local issue between the governments of Henderson and Clark County, but that position contradicted earlier correspondence between the federal agency and Henderson.

In September, the BLM's Las Vegas field manager Mark Morse said the agency "will not object to the proposed annexation of the public lands the city has identified ... if Clark County supports the subject annexation."

The agency later modified its position to say that the BLM would allow the annexation to go forward as long as the county does "not object" to the annexation. The county, however, objected.

Bonnie Rinaldi, Henderson assistant city manager, said state law gives the county a trump card. Annexation of federal land can only go forward if the agency controlling the land does not object, she said.

She said the county's objection does not mean that the annexation is permanently derailed.

"It will certainly delay the annexation," Rinaldi said. "It doesn't mean that the annexation is off.

"This has happened today so we're exploring what needs to be done. We're trying to figure out a game plan now."

Henderson wanted to annex the land to expand the planning area for 1,900 acres that the BLM sold in auction to Focus Property Group, a Las Vegas development company, in June. The land is next door to the developer's property.

Rinaldi said the stalled annexation effort will complicate the city's plans to develop infrastructure and a financing plan for building the infrastructure within the Focus Group's property.

Although the annexation effort is delayed, Rinaldi said a planned March 15 public hearing on the annexation could still go forward.

"We still need to get public input," she said. "We're still on as of today."

Staffers from both Henderson and Clark County said they could and would work together to resolve the outstanding development issues blocking the annexation.

"I would hope that we would work cooperatively to resolve the issue," said Barbara Ginoulias, Clark County Comprehensive Planning director.

The alternative might be no annexation at all. Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said she wanted a "global" plan to consider how the county and the cities fit together before she would support any annexation effort.

"I am going to put my foot down and I am not going to approve this," she said at the commission meeting. "If you don't look at it from a global point of view, you make mistakes."