MARK WAITE / PVT Empty chairs line the stage after Pahrump Regional Planning Commission members leave the Bob Ruud Community Center. Audience members remain to pepper Hogle Ireland consultants with their zoning complaints. Advertisement

Pahrump Regional Planning Commission members promptly left the second workshop Wednesday to consider the zoning map, due to the improper posting of the agenda, but a crowd of 80 people stayed to air their differences with the study with Hogle-Ireland consultants.

Nye County Attorney Ron Kent said a commissioner brought it to his attention that the agenda wasn't posted in four prominent places in the community as required under the Nevada Open Meetings Act.

A phone call to the Nevada Attorney General's office confirmed the meeting couldn't proceed, he said.

Kent suggested the RPC continue the meeting to June 11 and anyone who wanted to voice comments to the consultants be allowed to remain. The comments will be included in a report to be presented to the RPC at a meeting starting at 3 p.m., June 11. The planning commission will then only have nine days to make a recommendation before Nye County commissioners are scheduled to consider the zoning map June 20.

Consultants presented a list of zoning changes already approved, but said they had 300 more cases still to consider before June 11. More complaints followed at the Wednesday meeting, which itself was technically a continuation of the first meeting on the map May 16, during which more than 200 people were outside the Bob Ruud Community Center, waiting to get in.

In some areas consultants made corrections based on updated information from sales maps. In other cases, requests weren't supported, project manager Kathy Lottes said. Often a request for increased density wasn't appropriate given existing conditions. Other areas needed further study, consultants said.

Planner Robert Zegarra said many properties on the south side of Highway 372 west of Leslie Street were rezoned to a rural residential one-acre minimum lot size instead of the 4.5-acre rural homestead. Existing subdivision patterns already resulted in the development of one acre lots, he said.

Consultants recommended further study in the Calvada Meadows Air Park area, where Zegarra said there's "a bit of a unique type of development where the subdivision allows property owners to construct hangars. There is actually no zoning that would allow for that type of a zone."

Planners listed a number of factors considered in putting colors on the zoning map: the 2004 master plan recommendations, sales maps, subdivision patterns, available infrastructure, as well as conditions, covenants and restrictions (CC&Rs).

But in their arguments over individual cases, information from land sales or subdivision maps sometimes trumped recommendations in the 2004 master plan, as in the case of a resident around Pahrump Valley Boulevard and Spy Glass Avenue who complained about multi-family zoning in an area of one-acre single-family homes.

Comments by Hogle Ireland principal partner Mike Thiele, that consultants weren't proposing any changes to the 2004 master plan, aroused some grumbling from the audience in a general unruly meeting with the absence of a committee chairman rapping the gavel.

"Usually zoning comes before subdivisions, not after. That really complicates the process, trying to find the right fit concerning zoning of property," Thiele said.

There were old wounds that resurfaced from the last meeting.

Jan Jensen, who built the Stagestop Casino, complained about lots around the casino being zoned rural residential. She also has Stagecoach Manufacturing across the street. Jensen also had problems with a lot on Gamebird Road zoned residential, that's surrounded by commercial businesses.

"If somebody tells me I'm going to go to rural residential, what did I spend all this money for?" Jensen said. "I want to grow, I want to build."

Thiele told Raja Gangadharan, on Hafen Ranch Road, a business is zoned general commercial if it provides a service to the entire community, like a Wal-Mart or Home Depot store, while a local strip mall would be neighborhood commercial, which attracts mainly people from the immediate area.

Thiele said chances are if a business is located on Highway 160 or Highway 372, on a larger parcel it has a better chance of being zoned general commercial.

Nye County Planning Director Jack Lohman said Pahrump has more lenient rules when it comes to the grandfather clause, which allows people to continue their present use of their property even though it may conflict with the new zone.

"I worked in a number of cities, where non-conforming uses, you cannot expand an inch. I would say this county is very liberal in allowing non-conforming uses to expand with a conditional use permit," Lohman said.

His comment drew snide remarks from the audience that Pahrump isn't a city.

John Glynn was an example of the horse owners. He protested being put in a VR-20 suburban zone, which would prohibit owning large animals. Thiele admitted the existing development pattern was larger lots on which people have horses but said the master plan designated the area medium-density residential.

In urging officials to slow down the process, Scott Ruthe said not enough people understand the zoning process. When consultants walk away, residents are going to have to live with the new zoning, he said.

"This is a wholesale redistribution of values potentially pushing things back substantially in the marketing curve for this valley," Ruthe said. "I don't see where you're encouraging cultural or economic diversity in this plan."

Lohman said the county wasn't rushing the process, the master plan passed in 2004 and it's now 2007.

Ruthe, referring to a California community mentioned by Hogle-Ireland previously, said, "This is the Fontana plan to ensure meth labs, puppy farms, survivalists, etc."

While consultants said they also factored in CC&Rs, Larry Wrangham said he was told Calvada CC&Rs wouldn't be considered, since he was told the company was bankrupt.

Lori Vogel, a resident of Tonya Street, was one of a couple of residents who said they never received any notice of the meetings and didn't know about the zoning until they saw it on television Tuesday. Hogle-Ireland sent out 48,500 notices to parcel owners about the zoning changes.

Kathey Benoit said property she is concerned about had three zone changes from mixed use to medium-density residential, now agricultural.

"One of the things you guys have said through this whole thing is you want to have consistency," Benoit said. But she added, "Anybody who comes in and buys property with a piece of dirt next to it might reasonably expect a house will go in next to them, but when that property changes hands they're going to apply for whatever they want to use it for."

Thiele, looking a bit frustrated after three hours of questioning, said ultimately it will be the responsibility of the commission to decide what to do on the zoning, regardless of what the consultants recommend. He also reminded the audience the master plan could be amended, the source of many of the recommendations.