MARK WAITE / PVT A new Valley Electric Association transmission line, a few stakes and a for-sale sign mark a 120-acre parcel a couple blocks east of Hafen Ranch Road on the south side of Thousandaire Boulevard that currently is home to coyotes and jack rabbits, but a fifth-generation Las Vegas developer is eyeing it up for apartments and shopping malls. Advertisement

A developer of housing and shopping complexes in Las Vegas was warned about the flood danger involved in a proposal for 120 acres west of where the Focus Property Group wants to build a massive residential concentration.

The Pahrump Regional Planning District voted 4-2 Wednesday not to recommend approval of the requested master plan change, zoning change and parcel map.

The Pahrump drainage map defines the area as lying within an "A" flood zone, meaning it will likely flood once every 100 years.

Developer Ernest Becker V wants to build apartments and single-family homes on 120 acres east of Evans Road, between Thousandaire Boulevard and Santovito Street. It would include a 20-acre commercial zone fronting on Thousandaire Boulevard as a buffer, with convenience stores, taverns and restaurants.

Becker said he is the fifth generation of a family that has built shopping centers in California and Las Vegas, including one on Decatur Avenue and Rainbow Drive. He said the project probably wouldn't get under way for three to five years, after the Focus project, which calls for building up to 5,800 homes, after they finish the drainage and traffic studies.

While Thousandaire Boulevard is only a short, two-lane, dead-end dirt road on the segment east of Hafen Ranch Road, Becker foresees the day when it will be six lanes with a traffic load of 60,000 to 80,000 vehicles per day. The Nye County capital improvement plan, presented earlier in the day by Public Works Director Samson Yao, suggested completing Thousandaire Boulevard from Highway 160 through to Homestead Road by the year 2013.

Becker said in Las Vegas residential developments have been built with stores and restaurants in the vicinity of residences, in answer to complaints by people without cars and the elderly who can't drive.

"The majority of our shopping centers are neighborhood shopping centers that cater to that person. The other item is we're going to limit the driveway cuts in and out of Thousandaire," Becker said.

Consultant Dave Richards, of CivilWise Services, said there's been serious development in southern Pahrump since the master plan was passed in 2004, citing the Artesia project farther south, the Beazer Homes project to the west, as well as the Focus group plans to the east.

Nye County Planning Director Jack Lohman, however, said the flood zone is "a major, hugely significant issue" that would doom a project in other jurisdictions.

"It makes me very concerned we're approving something in a 100-year flood plain without the information that it could be mitigated," Lohman said.

Richards countered there are flood zones throughout the Pahrump Valley. He said the developers will pay for studies to quantify the flooding potential after they receive the zoning that entitles them to use their property.

Lohman cautioned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is tightening up the requirements on flood zones. Nye County planners have attended seminars on the undetermined flood zone 'A', where the project would be built, he said.

Developer Tim Hafen was recently able to revise the flood plain map for the Artesia subdivision by constructing drainage improvements. To the north, the first nine holes constructed on the Mountain Falls golf course were sunk into the ground well below the level of the homes, incorporating a 500-year flood retention basin.

"The only scary part about this, some developments know the purpose with the flooding is to get the water off the property, not to control the water. A lot of the neighboring properties could be at risk with a project like this," RPC member Jacob Skinner said.

Richards said it's illegal to design a project to divert flood runoff onto someone else's property.

Becker hinted possible drainage improvements constructed by other developers, like Focus Property Group, could improve the situation on his property.

"In other areas there were projects, as things were developed upstream from us, that were going to reduce those flows to our property," Becker said.

Richards said the density of the residential development could be reduced because area has to be set aside for detention basins or parks. RPC Chairman Mark Kimball suggested Becker apply for a VR-10 or VR-12 zone rather than a VR-8 zone he wants on 82 acres, which allows 8,000-square-foot lots, among the more dense developments allowed under the zoning code. That was agreeable to Richards.

But RPC member Nevada Tolladay was rebuffed when he asked if a VR-20 zone, requiring a minimum of 20,000 square-foot lots -- almost an entire acre apiece -- would sink the project.

Becker said his company typically builds two-story complexes, but they'd have to study the market in Pahrump.

Pahrump Town Board representative Laurayne Murray said local residents know the area will develop. There are concerns about density from people accustomed to riding horses or all-terrain vehicles in the desert, she said.

But Kimball said the concept of "smart growth" is in vogue, in which developers save open space by creating more density instead of everyone having acre-and-a-quarter lots.

"They know this is a river full of boulders every time they get heavy rain down there," Murray said. "Part of the assurance they want to know (is) if this board of commissioners would follow the proper steps to mitigate that."

Speaking of mitigation, Murray warned Becker of desert tortoise mitigation fees that would probably be required.

But Murray's motion to approve the master plan change failed to achieve a super-majority vote of five RPC members.

Likewise the RPC tied 3-3 on a second motion to approve just the Thousandaire commercial strip.

The item will be heard by the Nye County Commission Oct. 24.