Editorial: Progress on growth front

Friday, March 11, 2005 | 4:56 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 12 - 13, 2005

A task force authorized by the Clark County Commission held hearings throughout 2004 and early this year in an effort to comprehend our nation-leading growth and clearly set goals for dealing with it. Its final report was issued last week and it came as no surprise that developing a lot more lower-cost housing was the No. 1 priority. A family in the Las Vegas Valley wanting to buy a median-priced new home (about $307,500) must have a household income of about $80,000. Yet the median household income here is about $46,000. Even an existing home, with a median price of $251,000, is out of reach for families earning $46,000. They would need to be making nearly $60,000, real estate experts say.

Unless something is done, teachers, nurses, hotel workers and people in similarly essential jobs will be permanently priced out of the Las Vegas home market. Obviously, as time goes by, this would have a devastating impact on our quality of life. It would be hard if not impossible for the school district, hospitals and private businesses to recruit skilled people to work here if they cannot expect to ever own a home.

The task force offered some good ideas and some not so good. It suggested, for example, relaxing governmental regulations and consumer protections to make home building less expensive, so savings could be passed on to consumers. But the long-term costs of fixing shoddy construction would far surpass any initial savings. One good idea was to encourage local employers to invest in housing and then offer it back to employees at subsidized rates. Another good idea was for a percentage of federal land sold at auction to be set aside for low-cost homes.

But the specific remedies can come later, after County Commission meetings and public hearings. For now, it's critically important that we have a set of general goals established by a task force composed of a cross-section of citizens. The goals include more "mixed use" developments, so that people can live nearer to where they work, cutting down on traffic and air pollution; more mass transit options, including light rail systems; and concurrent planning, so that infrastructure such as schools and fire stations comes on line simultaneously with new home developments.

These ideas have actually been around for 20 years or more, but this is the first time they've been set down in writing and formally offered by a blue-ribbon panel. We hope that now they will get the attention they have always deserved. A blueprint for valley-wide planning is long overdue.