Commission rezones property, says use must be compatible

By Jeff Pope

Thursday, June 18, 2009 | noon

Residents of a rural area of Enterprise temporarily won a battle in their fight to limit growth and preserve their bucolic lifestyle.

Acting as the zoning commission on Wednesday, county commissioners gave limited approval to rezone 7.7 acres from rural to commercial property but said they would not allow a use that was too intense or incompatible with the neighborhood.

Nearly 100 people, some of them carrying signs reading “We Live Here, No Hotel,” attended the meeting to protest the zone change and a proposed four-story, 160-room hotel and a shopping center on the site.

Eleven people, including the property owners, attended the meeting to support the changes.

The property is between Interstate 15 and Dean Martin Drive and between Raven and Agate Avenues.

The west side of Dean Martin Drive is a rural neighborhood preservation area. The land use designation was created in 2004 to limit growth in areas of the valley where people generally live on a half-acre or more and keep livestock.

The property around the preservation areas was intended to be zoned to have a low impact on the rural neighborhoods. Professional offices for doctors or lawyers are fine, but hotels and shopping malls are not.

However, the 7.7 acres is on the east side of Dean Martin, which was designated in 2004 with the county’s highest, densest possible land use — a hotel resort.

The land owners and their attorney, Chris Kaempfer, said the county should respect their rights to develop their land in accordance with the approved, legal land use plan.

“Master plans are to provide certainty in land ownership and development,” Kaempfer said. “Without adherence to our master plans, neither homeowners nor developers can ever be protected.”

“It’s not right nor is it fair for homeowners to hold up that master plan and tell you that you must honor this, then in the next breath say, ‘You must ignore that same plan when it comes to development outside of our RNP,’” Kaempfer said.

Kaempfer said the distance between the freeway and Dean Martin is only 700 feet, which is too narrow to build a Strip-type resort hotel. The proposed plan was for a business suites hotel. However, Kaempfer pulled that plan from consideration during the meeting saying they would return with alternate plans for developing the site.

Opponents said a hotel would increase crime and traffic in the neighborhood and doesn’t fit the rural character of the area.

One neighbor, James McGaughey, said he and other opponents know growth is coming their way but the proposed hotel was too intense of a use to be a proper buffer from the rural neighborhood.

“It’s nothing more than the same greed that we’ve had for the last eight years allowing all these special interest groups to run reckless with their profiteering motives, to do whatever they want to do at the expense of the homeowner,” he said.

Commissioner Larry Brown called the issue a unique snapshot of the changes that are coming to the area.

Land use designations set the types of zoning allowed and the Enterprise Land Use Plan is currently being revised.

The proposed new map eliminates all the resort land use west of the freeway and south of the Silverton and the 7.7 acres at issue is proposed to be redesignated for business and design research park uses.

A draft is expected to be available to the public in the fall and the commission could adopt the new Enterprise plan by the end of the year.

“This may be the most intense parcel on the entire corridor,” Brown said.

The commissioners’ ruling also gives the developer five years to commence construction. The owners could ask the commission for an extension of time.

If construction does not begin within five years and the commission denies an extension of time, the property would become designated for a business and design research park, which would not allow the new zoning the commission approved.

The 7.7 acres was designated for office professional use prior to 2004. At that time, the economy was flourishing and the land on both sides of the freeway was designated for more hotels, high-rise condominiums and similar uses.

Residents who opposed the proposed hotel say those uses are no longer appropriate.

Last August, commissioners struck down design plans for a hotel on the site that was twice the size.

Neighbor Cheryl Wilson said she had a petition from last August with 177 signatures from people opposed to a hotel on the site. She said she would support the east side of Dean Martin becoming professional office space.

“Let’s do something that’s responsible and something that’s compatible with the neighborhood so everybody can kind of co-habitate,” she said.

Kaempfer called the decision a “mixed bag” and said after the meeting that the neighbors’ desire for office professional is not appropriate in that area.

The contested area is in Commissioner Steve Sisolak’s district. He proposed allowing the zone change to commercial, required any plans to be reviewed by the neighbors and gave five years to commence building.

“The one thing you can’t get away from is it abuts I-15,” he said. “It’s going to be used for some commercial purposes whether that be the hotel... or something less intense.”

Commissioners approved Sisolak’s motion by a 5-2 vote with Tom Collins and Chris Giunchigliani opposed saying the zoning is too intense and commercial development in that neighborhood is premature.

“It’s years away from being developed,” Collins said.