Thursday, Feb. 6, 2003 | 11 a.m.
Residents of Spring Valley clashed Wednesday over the fate of nearly 300 acres in what a few years ago was undeveloped desert, but became the focus of a battle over how Clark County handles the entire land-use planning process.
The battle pitted golf course developer Billy Walters, who has a lease with Clark County to develop a golf course but wants to build offices and a shopping center too, against nearby residents who wanted only a golf course or a park -- the original land uses specified in an abandoned master plan.
Ultimately, the Clark County Commission split the difference. It reduced Walters' request for 40 acres of intensive commercial to 25 acres and the office area from 20 acres to 15, and kept the 200-acre golf course next door. The commissioners also insisted that county staff renegotiate the lease for the land to reflect fair-market values -- a relief for a competitor that owns commercial land nearby.
The commission's 6-0 decision -- Commissioner Rory Reid, who works for the law firm representing Walters, abstained -- pleased neither side, but both sides said they could live with the result.
The decision capped a year of often contentious wrangling over 285 acres at the corner of Warm Springs Road and Cimarron Drive. As they have in 20 public meetings before, both sides came out with rhetorical guns blazing.
Billy Walters "has complied with every step of the process," former Sen. Richard Bryan, representing the developer, said. "I wish we could say we have reached a compromise. That is not the case."
Planning consultant Greg Borgel agreed.
"We want the entire neighborhood to feel good about the entire development," he said. "If allowed to go forward with this project this will be a cornerstone for development in Spring Valley."
Patrick McGuire, a Rhodes Ranch resident, was one of about 20 people -- many from nearby the project -- who spoke in favor of Walters' proposal.
"It's three or four miles from any commercial," McGuire said. "There's nothing. We're all by ourselves."
But opponents, many of whom were bitterly disappointed when the previous board of county commissioners approved a land-use master plan amendment that allowed the project to go forward, argued that this was not the place to put a shopping center.
"The issue before you today is not the specific project presented by Mr. Walters," Spring Valley resident and community activist Carolyn Edwards said. "It is the master-plan amendment.
"The project, I will say this, is a fine project. The problem is its location," she said. "The question before you today is: Do we need more commercial?"
What the neighborhood lost in the master-plan amendment, approved in November, was 60 acres that could have been open space as part of the golf course or a community park. Instead, the area got the promise of traffic problems and parking lots, she said.
Other speakers, about a dozen at the Clark County Commission zoning meeting, argued that the deal was unfair to other nearby developers forced to buy their land and would have a negative impact on Sierra Vista High School, which sits just east of the project.
Commissioner Bruce Woodbury proposed the final compromise. But Woodbury and Commissioners Yvonne Atkinson Gates, Chip Maxfield and Mark James insisted that any lease for golf-course land be renegotiated if it becomes intensively commercial.
Chris Peitsch, a homeowner who lives within the Rhodes Ranch master-planned community just outside the boundaries of the project, said the outcome still needs to be watched carefully to ensure that the county and the nearby residents are treated fairly.
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