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July 16, 2004
Regional planning postpones meeting
By PHILLIP GOMEZ The other items on the board's consent agenda - a conditional use permit application by brothel owner Joe Richards for the placement of a billboard off-premises at the corner of Homestead Road and Silver Street, and another application requesting a change in the name of a street - were also postponed until Aug. 11. The postponement came by request of J. L. Pennington, owner of the property proposed for development as a 625-single-family-lot subdivision on Bond Street between Homestead and Vicki Ann roads. The application for the subdivision, Quail Valley Estates, has been postponed twice before, the last time due to the ill health of the applicant. The Quail Valley Estates project is contentious for reasons of infrastructure requirements the county may impose on the developer. The number and nature of the amenities in public parks the developer is providing in the area remain at issue. On the Richards application, the planning commission's staff recommended disapproval of the billboard. The reasons stated are: • The sign is inconsistent with the standards of the county's master plan update in terms of design goals, objectives and policies regarding community character and quality of life. • Off-premise signs do not contribute to the provision of adequate utilities, roadway improvements or public infrastructure needs. • The site is not suitable for the area according to the adopted master plan. • Approval of a conditional use permit for the sign "may be deemed detrimental in that off-premise signs create negative impacts to views and night skies ... such signs may create and contribute to visual clutter and promote a negative aesthetic impact on the community." Finally, newly seated RPC board member Walt Kuver motioned for a new item to be considered at the next RPC meeting: the first amendment to the county's new zoning ordinance; to wit, Kuver charged the commission to set new design standards regarding water conservation in new developments in the Pahrump Regional Planning District. Admitting that the things he had in mind would require "a lot of public hearings," Kuver later spelled out some of his ideas for The Pahrump Valley Times: • Prohibition of new artificial ponds or lakes, such as that at Terrible's Lakeside Casino. • Require new golf course developments to use reclaimed water and put limitations on areas planted with grass. • Make it illegal to propagate any more salt cedar trees, also called tamarisks. Mature trees, an exotic import from Australia, use 200 gallons of water per day, Kuver said. Beatty has a formal program to eradicate the invader species, he said. Leadership must take a more definitive stance on water conservation, Kuver said, so Pahrump can at least postpone the date when it has to import its water supply. "Let's do now what they're doing in Las Vegas retroactively," he said. |
