Tuesday, June 11, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Clark County and school district officials helped pave the way for a controversial federal land exchange by giving up claims to almost 400 acres wanted by developer Jim Rhodes for a master-planned community.
A letter from County Manager Pat Shalmy on file with the Bureau of Land Management said the county would withdraw its application for 290 acres of federal land in the southwest corner of Warm Springs and Durango roads for a regional park.
In exchange, the county agreed to file for 395 acres on the east side of Durango Drive providing the landowners release their mineral claims to the property.
In a similar move, the Clark County School District gave up 70 acres of BLM land reserved for future school sites in exchange for a promise from Rhodes to set aside 10 acres for a future school site.
School district zoning chief Dusty Dickens could not be reached for comment, but BLM records state the reason for giving up the 70 acres was that most of Rhodes Ranch was being planned as an adults-only community.
The parkland swap, approved by the County Commission earlier this year, made the land exchange possible for the 1,300-acre Rhodes Ranch development, said Richard Holmes, director of comprehensive planning for Clark County.
"It wasn't the board's intention to help out a private exchange," Holmes said. "If the board had the chance to definitively control the exchange process, this would be one area they'd be less than enthusiastic about."
Because of neighborhood opposition to the Rhodes Ranch project, the commission last week delayed approval of the concept plan until June 19.
The BLM's moves to open thousands of acres in the valley to development have taxed the county's ability to provide services such as roads and water and sewer facilities, not to mention providing adequate schools, parks and law enforcement.
As a result, the commission has asked for a moratorium on all future land exchanges while seeking congressional approval of a bill that would give the county a say in what federal lands could be traded and give the county 50 percent of the proceeds from land trades to pay for public services and utilities.
BLM officials oppose the bill because they say it gives too high a percentage of the proceeds to local governments.
Meanwhile, the BLM is actively negotiating swaps for more than 11,000 acres in the Las Vegas Valley with the American Land Conservancy, Del Webb Corp., the Olympic Group and others.
Rhodes got 950 acres through the Cashman Land Exchange, which was brokered by the American Land Conservancy. The Cashman family turned over 1,300 acres in the Mount Charleston area to the Forest Service in exchange for 950 acres of open rural land in the southwest Las Vegas Valley.
Holmes said the county saw the Rhodes land exchange as a done deal, and the park application agreement as a way to get something out of the developer.
"They asked us to move because they felt some land we'd set aside for park purposes was in the middle of where they wanted to assemble land for their exchange," Holmes said. "Given that the exchange was proceeding with or without us, this seemed like a good way to participate."
The land the county got is in the airport cooperative management area, which restricts residential growth because of noise from jets taking off at McCarran International Airport, Holmes said.
"We prefer to not see sales in that area," Holmes said. Conversely, an accepted use for land in the airport management area is recreation.
The landowners also agreed to give a $150,000 certificate of deposit to the Clark County Parks and Recreation Department, and provide water and sewer hookups for the proposed park site along lines pioneered by the developer.
"That helped accelerate the public purpose in our view," Holmes said. "There's no water out there today."
The county also will get more land in the bargain, although much of it won't be developable because a flood plain runs through it, Holmes said.
"The new site may be more affected by a major flood," Holmes said, noting that both properties would have required flood control work. "It's no big difference as far as final cost for the buildout."
archive
