A zone change was approved by Nye County Commissioners Tuesday, allowing the subdividing of the Pahrump Valley Raceway for different racing amenities.

The 22 acre parcel on Panorama Road will be subdivided into an 11.1 acre lot, a 5.6 acre lot and two 2.2 acre lots. It was rezoned to a light industrial zone, which was the recommended zoning under the 2004 master plan.

The new owner of the raceway is planning various businesses to supplement racing at the dirt oval, including a repair and storage facility for vehicles, a restaurant, bar and perhaps a driving school.

The application was approved without comment. It was previously recommended for approval by the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission.

In other planning matters:

Officials with Sunstate Components were told to return to the RPC to rezone 12.95 acres to the new commercial manufacturing zone. Sunstate representatives want the rezoning to install a truss manufacturing facility.

Commissioners appeared more sympathetic to the company plans, they agreed to fast track the application, scheduling it for the June 13 RPC meeting and June 20 county commission meeting.

The RPC had recommended denial of the project, which proponents said would create over 50 jobs. It would be located on Dandelion Street and Ironwood Avenue, near where commissioners recently denied an expansion project for Lewis Equipment Company, a precedent that was cited by Commissioner Joni Eastley.

"My problem is the fundamental issue of fairness. At the very last meeting we denied an opportunity for the crane company to expand its operation because we allowed them to put a heavy industrial business in a residential area," Eastley said. "You don't correct a problem or eliminate a problem by exacerbating it."

Tim Henrickson, owner of Sunstate Components, said his company has state-of-the-art truss manufacturing facilities in North Las Vegas, Surprise, Arizona and Kingman, Arizona.

"We already have a pretty good market share in this area. We did a little bit of a study and determined that the end of town is where we needed to be," Henrickson said.

"We knew the zoning was not zoned heavy industrial at that time but the likelihood of residential nearby was pretty unlikely," he said.

Henrickson said they would be willing to agree to setbacks, landscape buffers, limits on hours of operation, height requirements, noise restrictions and other steps to mitigate any impacts on the neighborhood. The truss manufacturing will take place on six acres, allowing sufficient space for buffering, he said.

Nye County Assistant Planner Cheryl Beeman said Lewis Equipment Company was built when there were no restrictions on open use zoning.

Commissioner Butch Borasky referred to the lumber yard next door to the proposed site. "The difference between the lumber yard and what these folks are doing is a simple process of punch pressing wood," he said.

Henrickson said his business would be a less intensive use than Lewis Equipment, which has big crane assemblies stacked up.

Rezoning was approved for a 1.1 acre lot on Dandelion Street and Homestead Road where a 22,000 square-foot retail shopping center will be built, including a drive-through coffee shop. It was rezoned neighborhood commercial.

Previous development plans for that corner were denied, including a recent go-kart track project.

Jeff Johnson won a rezoning for 1.3 acres at Homestead Road and Alfalfa Street, a block south of Highway 160, for outdoor trailer sales. The trailer sales would take place behind a model home on the property. Johnson protested a condition requiring the installation of a block wall, made at the suggestion of Commissioner Borasky.

Property owners Gerald Schultz and TMK Inc. were denied a rezoning for 4.6 acres on Heritage Drive east of Oakridge Avenue, on the grounds it didn't meet the five-acre minimum size for an RV park.

Mary Roman won approval to rezone 3.4 acres to general commercial at 981 W. Wilson Road, near Linda Street, without submitting a site plan of the development.