Grass-roots views enter LV planning

Cities across the nation are undergoing a revolution in which residents gain control over their neighborhoods by creating their own boards, councils and associations.

The city of Las Vegas is caught up in that wave and is starting a neighborhood council system to be incorporated into the city's planning process.

Neighborhood councils are defined as more than just crime-watch groups or homeowners associations. Though made up of residents, they become a functioning cog in the government machine for planning, zoning and public-works projects.

Originators of the concept didn't foresee such groups as becoming a part of government. Rather, it was just the opposite; early groups started in the anti-establishment 1970s when grass-roots movements were changing the nation's political process.

In Portland, Ore., neighborhood boards formed in 1974 as nonprofit groups completely separate from city government. They have evolved into district councils that have control over some city funds and are supported with city staff members.

"They operate as a sort of board of directors over city contracts in their area," Steve Young said of the current councils. He is fiscal and administrative coordinator for the office of neighborhood involvement.

"It's a check or balance on that system, rather than a part of it."

Seattle's 10-year-old neighborhood councils are organized similar to Portland's, with a district council overseeing individual neighborhood associations. In Seattle, the districts are given the power to prioritize capital projects for their budget.

Both systems give the neighborhood associations recommending power to the City Council of each city.

Los Angeles also has been caught up in the neighborhood council debate. Local officials there are trying to decide whether their neighborhood system should give the associations more than recommending power. They're also trying to decide whether the neighborhoods should control parts of the budget.

Las Vegas is looking to these other cities in deciding how neighborhood associations can be incorporated into its planning process.

A few months ago, the City Council passed an ordinance that formalized the neighborhood-planning process, making the system a bottom-up approach to improvement projects.

In this new process, neighborhood associations that are registered with the city of Las Vegas can get the help of city staff in drafting planning documents for their neighborhood. These plans can then be adopted as amendments to the general plan by the City Council.

A series of neighborhood meetings, with residents and businesses included, must be held before a plan can be submitted. Plans also must be reviewed and updated every five years.

With so many new neighborhoods in Las Vegas, the feeling of community -- and therefore community activism -- can be lacking. The city's 2-year-old Neighborhood Services Department has been working on this problem since its inception.

"Las Vegas has never had that feeling of community other cities have," Dennis Ardine said. He is an activist for the Charleston Heights neighborhood and has taken several of the workshops that Neighborhood Services has offered to residents.

"There are a lot of intelligent people in this valley. It's necessary for them to get involved."

In the past two years, the division has helped organize 67 different neighborhood associations to get residents involved. Those associations that are registered with the city can host clean-up drives with city crews and are notified when developers apply for zoning changes or building permits in their neighborhood.

"The main reason people like being on the associations is better communication," Sharon Segerblom, director of Neighborhood Services, said. "They get notifications, and they learn how to do more than just complain about something."

Segerblom and Kathy Sommers, manager of neighborhood planning and support, said that Las Vegas is far from the sophistication of Seattle's and Portland's neighborhoods. But that doesn't necessarily put the city or its residents at a disadvantage.

It's in the beginning stages of a community's planning, when neighborhoods are "born," that residents have the most power to shape which businesses will be their neighbors and what their streets might look like. Once the asphalt has been laid and the master zoning plans have been put into city charter, it's much harder to get them altered to suit residential needs, they said.

Las Vegas also is subject to the hundreds of homeowners associations formed in the gated communities and planned developments in the Valley. This gives the impression that residents are already in their own activist groups when, instead, the members often join and pay a monthly fee only because they are legally required to do so.

But even these formal developer-created groups haven't stopped the formation of the less-stringent neighborhood associations. In the northwest Las Vegas community of Summerlin, the city's largest master-planned area, almost all residents are part of homeowners associations. Despite that, Segerblom said, several neighborhood associations have formed lately.

"The voice of the people is very important in government," Eileen Krellenstein, a Summerlin resident and neighborhood activist, said. "Neighborhood associations can help that. Even if it makes for bigger government, sometimes you need to have a system for this. Otherwise there's no way for individual homeowners to know what other homeowners are going through."

Though a formal system is not yet in place for Las Vegas neighborhood associations to participate in government, the groundwork is being laid for that to eventually happen, Sommers said.

"There are a lot of models out there for neighborhood councils," she said. "We don't know which one Las Vegas will be. One size doesn't fit all."

Terri Barber, deputy director of the Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association, agrees.

"The system has to be fair for everyone," she said. "Sometimes the neighbors will just have a laundry list of demands, not realizing the rights builders have. They need to educate everyone."

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