 |
 |
 |
||
|
||||
|
March 15, 2006
'Hard' zoning on the way to valley
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
Hogle-Ireland Inc., a land planning and development consulting firm, was selected for the company's bid of $617,225 to finish the job begun nearly three years ago by Tri-Core Engineering consulting firm. In November 2004 Pahrump Valley residents voted to zone the valley. However, that approval did nothing to legally create a zoning grid of appropriate land uses for the valley's different areas. The work will be the final step in actually zoning the valley according to its master plan and zoning ordinance. The original estimate for the job was $400,000, "that being without many issues, continuations, re-hearings, etc," according to Tri-Core's rough calculation made some years ago. In the past year, the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission has become mired in a myriad of zone change requests requiring the RPC's individual evaluation, particularly with "Mixed Use" zone change applications. The so-called "hard zoning" of the valley is to be conducted in two phases taking approximately eight months to complete. The bid includes the cost of preparing a town center overlay map. That map also would put into practice a central business district for Pahrump, defining the area where appropriate "downtown" businesses could locate and describing the design criteria for new construction. One other bid was received for the project, that of Lumos and Associates Inc., a civil engineering services firm out of Carson City. While Lumos' bid was less expensive by $62,179, Hogle-Ireland was selected due to the firm's confidence in being able to complete the work in just two phases as opposed to Lumos' three. Additionally, seven bid reviewers for the county rated Hogle-Ireland substantially higher in three other categories: proposal, experience and qualifications, and cost. Virtually the entire Pahrump development community has gone on record in favor of getting the hard zoning completed for the valley. Some real estate professionals feared the zoning measure would be too late in coming - that too much potential commercial development had already been lost to Pahrump as developers looked elsewhere to build, where planning wasn't such a problematic issue. "We have heard from the development community that our current process has caused the community to miss out on many economic development opportunities, and I see no other way to remedy this situation except to zone the properties as soon as possible," wrote Commissioner Joni Eastley in the agenda proposal. Nye County Commissioner Patricia Cox moved to fund the cost of the work from county land sales. According to the outline of Hogle-Ireland's cost proposal, the engineering job breaks down like this: • Mapping and county assessor records update, $47,085. • Zoning district analysis, $173,900 in the first phase; $125,000 in the second phase. • Meetings and public hearings, $71,875 in the first phase; $50,050 in the second phase. • Town center overlay: $63,000 for the zoning analysis; $31,875 for meetings and public hearings. |
|
