Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006 | 7:24 a.m.
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Faced with the development of tens of thousands of homes 40 to 80 miles from Las Vegas, a group of civic leaders proposes a super regional task force to help oversee growth and coordinate planning between governmental agencies.
Proponents say an advisory task force to oversee long-term planning and growth issues should include not only municipal officials from Clark, Nye and Lincoln counties in Nevada, where satellite communities are expected to sprout over the next 20 years, but from Arizona's Mohave County as well since it also will become a bedroom community serving Clark County.
If patterned after similar organizations in other states, the advisory group also would include representatives of the development and business communities as well as citizen groups and civic organizations.
"We need to know what the long-term consequences are (of regional growth) and what are the unintended consequences of these kinds of developments that are going to be inevitable as the population surges and demand continues," said Bill Hudnut, a former Indianapolis mayor and senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington.
"A lot of problems cross jurisdictional lines. We are in the 21st century living with jurisdictional baggage that we inherited in the 19th century."
The planning group was proposed at a forum hosted by the Las Vegas chapter of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization that espouses quality land use. It advocates that regional land use decisions take into account demands on transportation, air quality, water and other environmental resources.
New satellite communities will add significantly to Clark County's population over the next 10 years, the Urban Land Institute said. They include the first 40,000 residents at Coyote Springs, 22,000 more in Pahrump, 10,000 in Moapa, 15,000 in Overton and Logandale, and 15,000 more in Mesquite.
Additionally, Rhodes Homes has approval to build 20,000 homes in Arizona about 30 miles from Hoover Dam and other developers are planning projects in northern Mohave County as well.
Government has a tendency to react rather than plan what's going to happen in 10 to 20 years, but potential problems associated with massive growth in the outlying areas must be addressed, said Brad Nelson, chairman of the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute. He said he has approached government leaders and is optimistic they will want to get involved.
"It is our objective to start alerting people who haven't thought there is much to worry about," Nelson said. "We want to create an umbrella group that gets people in a room and start talking and educating each other ... The growth is coming unless someone puts a gate up at the (Nevada) border."
Among the concerns facing long-term planners addressing leapfrog development is the government's ability to provide services in those outlying areas. Without proper planning, some of those costs could be borne by existing Las Vegas Valley residents, and burdens placed on local governments, officials said.
Among the issues, for instance, is who should pay for highway expansion to accommodate distant commuters driving to Las Vegas, or the cost of increasing the staffs at county and city planning departments that may be overwhelmed with new applications.
Pahrump was specifically identified by the Urban Land Institute for lacking experience to deal with sudden and major growth. Its challenge is magnified because, without additional revenue sources, Nye County won't be able to maintain even the current levels of public service.
Pahrump Town Board Chairman Richard Billman said he too is concerned about growth overwhelming the community and welcomes any help, especially in securing funding to improve Highway 160, a mostly two-lane highway that takes commuters between Las Vegas and Pahrump.
Builders have proposed setting up special improvement districts in the new desert communities in which homeowners pay for public improvements, but Hudnut said he fears that won't be enough to pay for a lifestyle they thought would be more affordable. Taxes must go up, he said.
"The house may be affordable, but will it be sustainable?" Hudnut said. "They are not the same thing. Will there be sufficient revenues to provide the services that are needed in a good-sized community? We are talking not only sewer but roads and schools and hospitals and police and fire and social services. All of this is the responsibility of the government, and it has to get its money from somewhere."
Conference attendees acknowledged there appears to be no stopping the massive development that's eventually going to occur in the satellite communities.
That is aided because Clark County has 145,000 acres of federal land available for public auction, but only 25,000 to 35,000 acres of that is in the Las Vegas Valley, said Mike Ford, the Nevada director of the Conservation Fund.
Hudnut said a regional task force should ask Congress to release more federal land for sale in the Las Vegas Valley to reduce leapfrog development. But he said that would only "stem the tide," and that growth would ultimately resume with the surge in population and lower prices.
The task force also could guide where development should be directed.
Housing outside of the metropolitan Las Vegas Valley is expected to be especially attractive to buyers because of cheaper prices and larger lots.
Scot Rutledge, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said his group will want representation on the regional advisory board because it is worried about growth's effects on the environment and taxes.
Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said the state could offer guidance to a regional task force advising on growth.
"I always thought it makes sense to coordinate before we find ourselves with huge communities that don't have roads to get into and water to service it and medical coverage and teachers to educate our children. The satellite communities are going to be relying on metropolitan areas."
Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid said the proposal sounds similar to the county's use of a growth task force to generate recommendations to address affordable housing, mixed-use development, resource conservation, and infrastructure planning and developer impact fees - recommendations that have been adopted or are under consideration.
"I think dialogue is good, and you don't lose when you talk," Reid said. "Certainly, growth is a key issue that affects every aspect of our life."
People shouldn't think regional planning isn't occurring now, said Kent Cooper, assistant director of the Nevada Transportation Department. State agencies are working with local governments on transportation, air quality and other growth-related issues, he said.
But Cooper said the proposed group can play a role in bringing together parties to deal with the transportation congestion that will result from the growth and limited funds for projects. That's especially true in Arizona, where proposed development hasn't shown any willingness to pay for impacts its projects will generate with commuters to Las Vegas. The group can be a force in coordinating transportation projects and securing additional funding and how to pay for it.
Henderson Councilman Steve Kirk heads the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, which has tried to address regional problems such as affordable housing and homelessness. The organization represents Clark County, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Boulder City and the Clark County School District.
Kirk said he was open to the idea of expanding the membership to including other cities and counties - but not a coalition of citizen organizations as proposed by the Urban Land Institute.
"To me that sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare," Kirk said. "We can barely get five entities together in the Las Vegas Valley ... I think everyone has his own turf and nobody wants to have somebody tell him what to do."
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