Tortoise may want vote on land deal

Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

A plan to protect some Boulder City land from development - and in so doing help out the Mojave Desert tortoise - is going to take the political equivalent of a five-cushion billiards shot to achieve its twin purposes.

If voters approve one ballot measure in June, one tract of land would be sold. If they pass a second ballot issue, the money generated by that sale would be used to buy another sprawling parcel where thousands of homes otherwise likely would be built.

Before all that happens, though, two local governments and a private developer would have to agree to the deal. And before some of the land would become home to the tortoises, Washington would have to sign off on the plan.

It all adds up to an election that voters may need a scorecard to follow. And even if voters pass the two measures, the complicated deal still could fall apart.

Four months before the election, many questions remain about a proposed series of agreements among Boulder City, Clark County and a developer over a three-way trade involving hundreds of acres of desert land.

The ballot questions do not specify a dollar amount or a number of acres in either part of the proposed land swap.

The one certainty among those unknowns is that Boulder City wants to use the ballot proposals to prevent the type of development seen across the valley.

Under one of the ballot measures, residents will have the option to vote to sell a section of Dutchman Pass - along the eastern edge of Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area - to Clark County, which would preserve the land as a habitat for the tortoise.

Voters then could choose to have the city use the revenue to buy a privately owned slice of land in Eldorado Valley, west of U.S. 95 near Railroad Pass, where developer Larry Canarelli, owner of American West Homes, plans to build a 3,800-home development.

Both sides have yet to determine how much each of the properties is worth. Boulder City Mayor Bob Ferraro said the city has not yet had the property appraised. Neither has Canarelli, said his attorney, Chris Kaempfer.

An appraisal also will be needed for Dutchman Pass, which consists of about 2,000 acres of 107,000 acres that the city purchased from the Bureau of Land Management in 1995 at the bargain price of $12 per acre.

Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, a Boulder City resident for nearly 30 years, has been at the forefront of negotiations.

But the clock is ticking. A county moratorium on development in the area ends in March. And Woodbury warns if voters don't approve the measure, county commissioners would likely approve a zoning change allowing Canarelli to begin construction on about 700 acres he owns. That, in turn, likely would be followed by development on a neighboring 435 acres.

The area currently is zoned for one home per two acres.

"It's a terrible area for residential," Woodbury said. "It's master planned for open space and industrial."

Building in the area would prove problematic for the county in terms of providing public services, because it would be a small island miles from other county land.

Another big if in the deal is getting the other county commissioners to agree to it.

If the county purchased Dutchman Pass, the deed would establish the land as a preserve for the Mojave Desert tortoise. That part of the deal also is contingent upon U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approval.

Woodbury said the county needs the land because in about eight years its Habitat Conservation Plan will require more space.

The county would buy the land with money from its Desert Conservation Program Fund, which currently has $70 million generated by a $550-per-acre fee charged to developers.

The theory behind the ballot measures is that Canarelli would agree to build elsewhere with the money he would receive from Boulder City. In essence, the city would be paying him to go away.

Kaempfer said Canarelli supports the plan.

Boulder City Council members and others in the community of about 15,000 predict the measures will pass, if only because much of the town is desperate to ward off Las Vegas-style development.

"The bottom line is if we are not comfortable with residential development in the valley, we have to take some steps to stop it," said Mike Pacini, a councilman and mayoral candidate.

Boulder City requires voter approval to buy or sell any land - part of the reason it is the largest city by area in Nevada, but has remained a small town despite being only 40 miles from the Strip.

This spring's ballot proposals come after two previous land deals collapsed.

Earlier this year, the city pursued a three-way land swap with the BLM and Canarelli under which the developer's land would have gone to the city and the BLM would have taken Dutchman Pass. That idea was scrapped, though, because the BLM did not have any large parcels to trade to Canarelli.

Last year the Coalition to Protect the Future of Boulder City, a group of residents, fought to put a pair of questions on the ballot that would have given voters a choice about the future of 107,000 acres of Eldorado Valley: Either preserve it as open space forever or, if the land were sold for development, give the profits to residents. That proposal, however, was removed from the November ballot by the state Supreme Court.

Councilwoman Andrea Anderson describes the new plan, which would allow the city to preserve two sizable chunks of land, as "pretty straightforward."

"It's selling the land to the county for conservation, not development," she said.

Ferraro said residents will get answers to the big questions about location and price before casting votes.

"Otherwise it's going to be a futile attempt," he said.