HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT The ducks at the Calvada Eye may someday be a feature of Pahrump's town center. Advertisement

Pahrump Regional Planning Commission members approved six new zones recommended by a consulting firm Wednesday, but audience members were more concerned about the proposed Pahrump town center being too small.

The 110 acres along Calvada Boulevard from Dandelion Street to Highway 160, including the 32-acre Calvada Eye, were identified by residents in a small survey as their preferred site of a town center. It is being incorporated into a town center zone.

Bradford Freeman, who wants to build condominiums on Basin Avenue, got the discussion started, saying it's not the right location for a town center. He pointed to the 2004 master plan for the Pahrump Regional Planning District which lists three possible "activity centers": on Basin Avenue and Highway 160, on Highways 372 and 160 and at the Calvada Eye. He said locating the town center at Highway 160 and Basin Avenue would put it near the county courthouse, the Wal-Mart store and other infrastructure.

The limited size of the town center would restrict the ability to develop that site, Freeman said. One developer could come in and develop the whole area, he said.

"It may not give the ability to portray that area in the town center way," Freeman said. "It seems that area is too limited, in first-come, first-serve."

Ilona Dahlke, a planner for Hogle-Ireland Consultants, said more than 50 percent of the residents queried preferred the Calvada Eye as the town center. But when pressed by Jason Wright and Nye County Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver, Dahlke admitted the sample survey included only about 25 people at a town center workshop and another 25 people who replied to the Web site.

"It looks like you want to put a lot of stuff in a very small place, and I'm very concerned about traffic congestion and parking," Wright said.

Richard Hughes, with Archer Development, said he thought the town center at the Calvada Eye was a done deal. He said it may be difficult to get enough lots with enough size to do much with that area.

Bob Howard said there will be "a couple hundred people" already working at the Calvada Eye once Nye County officials finish converting the buildings to government offices to house the county manager, district attorney and other officials. Howard said that site is too far from area motels and recreational vehicle parks.

Butch Borasky, the county's liaison to the RPC, felt people had adequate opportunities at numerous previous meetings to comment on the town center site before this.

"There's only so many people interested enough to come here and help plan it," Borasky said.

RPC member Carrick "Bat" Masterson said the town center doesn't have to be that big; the main place to go shopping in town will still be Wal-Mart or the future Home Depot.

"We're not talking about the town center being the town commercial center," Masterson said.

RPC member Norma Jean Opatik said the town center was a question of semantics.

Officially, Dahlke said the town center would be like a small, traditional downtown village with a special identity, a pedestrian-friendly environment with parks, plazas, paseos and open space.

Hogle-Ireland's report says residents felt the town center should function as the primary, community and activity center, focused around the Calvada Eye. It should have a mixture of civic uses and functions, neighborhood-serving commercial enterprises, mixed-use developments and recreation areas to bring diversity and synergy to the future central gathering area for citizens of Pahrump. Zoning would specifically prohibit "big box" stores.

Zoning consultants unveiled a "business opportunity overlay zone" replacing the proposed Homestead overlay zone, which planner Robert Zegarra said would fit in areas with neighborhood businesses on the same lot as a residence. That zone was originally thought most appropriate for Homestead Road, but could now apply to other areas identified as mixed-use zones, roughly 12 percent of the land area in Pahrump.

Consultants proposed requirements for a minimum six-foot high wall separating businesses from residences in many of the zones. Other zones adopted by the RPC include a medical support zone, for the property around the Desert View Regional Medical Center; the visitor commercial zone, geared toward tourists arriving on the west end of Highway 372; a Calvada commercial zone, in a block of land from Honeysuckle Park south to Calvada Boulevard, between Pahrump Valley Boulevard and Dandelion Street; and an open space, parks and recreation zone, to preserve natural open spaces from development, which includes for example, the Willow Creek golf course.

Realtor Paula Glidden urged county officials to act quickly on approving the zoning ordinance, which she said is stopping a firm to which she's trying to sell land from locating in Pahrump as opposed to Mesquite or northwestern Arizona.

"We're turning away businesses left and right," Glidden said.

Builder Rick Walker said flexibility should be written into the zoning codes.

"Figure out two or three choices so we have some architectural choices on what can be done," Walker said. "You don't want to turn down development just because we don't like your design. It pays to have some flexibility."

Realtor Trish Rippie felt she was interjecting a dose of reason into the argument. She said with the current prices of some lots, nobody is going to build homes on some of the areas zoned residential.

"The lid's off the lamp, the genie's out of the bottle," Rippie said. "People have already been buying and selling property in a way that's defined best uses."

Steve Settlemeyer, who said he used to sell lots for Preferred Equities Corporation out of the Calvada Eye, said it was a good idea to be updating the zoning maps every few years. In reality, zoning consultants are merely refining the master plan.

"It seems to be exploding out here," Settlemeyer said, a Las Vegas resident. "As Vegas is growing faster and faster and faster, Pahrump is looking better and better and better. But I'm afraid we're going to shift that burden out here."

The new zones were approved without much fuss. But RPC members said the big discussion will be when it comes time to approve the comprehensive zoning map for the Pahrump Regional Planning District, expected to be presented by Hogle Ireland this spring.

Project Manager Kathy Lottes said Hogle Ireland isn't proposing to change the land use categories of the master plan adopted in 2004. But she said the zoning study would take the general characteristics of that master plan and fashion it into more specific zones.