East Mesquite Avenue is being eyed for rezoning in an attempt to create more industrial property in Pahrump.

Pahrump Regional Planning Commissioners Wednesday favored the first option, including all parcels fronting on East Mesquite Avenue sandwiched between two existing heavy industrial parcels -- the Rinker Material site at the east end on Higley Road and a proposed scrap metal recycling yard on the west. Planner Steve Osborne said that would involve rezoning about 640 acres, or a square mile.

Pahrump town board representative Laurayne Murray wanted to exclude a 40-acre parcel rezoned for community facilities for the possible federal detention center on the northwest corner of East Mesquite Avenue and Powerline Road.

RPC member Norma Jean Opatik didn't think the area on the alluvial fan made a good location for industrial development, though it's been developing that way.

"It will open us up to having to apply different types of businesses that could potentially contaminate our water, to say nothing of the aesthetic values in town, looking at the right side on heavy industrial running up our mountainside," Opatik said. "Because it started on the east end does not mean we have to put it up there for everybody to see."

RPC Chairman Mark Kimball said he kept hearing the county didn't zone enough property heavy industrial in the master plan adopted in 2004.

"Clearly Mesquite has started to go in that direction, no matter what the master plan said," Kimball said.

RPC member Carrick "Bat" Masterson added, "just because you're industrial doesn't mean you contaminate."

Murray said what industrial zoned acreage exists in Pahrump Valley is tiny and is already occupied.

"I would argue the fan, although it's beautiful to go up there and sit on the hillside and look at the view, is an inappropriate place to build houses," Murray said. She cited the unstable soil for one thing.

Nye County Planning Director Jack Lohman said East Mesquite Avenue is only a small part of the alluvial fan. Kimball said this plan wouldn't destroy the potential to build beautiful homes on the alluvial fan.

Lohman said the first option is the cleanest one, outlining a simple rectangle.

Another option would have rezoned the gravel pits in the neighborhood as heavy industrial, though Lohman said that shouldn't be the concern of the planning department.

Lohman views the gravel pits as a legal, non-conforming use. He envisions gravel pits as a temporary use that will be gradually phased out as the valley develops.

Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky said gravel pits are necessary. They form a lot of acreage on the east side of Highway 160, contributing to the industrial character. Farther south of East Mesquite near Basin Avenue, scattered housing has cropped up among the gravel pits, leading to conflicts when more industrial or business projects are proposed

"If you start banning gravel pits you won't have a product to build with," Borasky said, who owns a gravel pit himself as part of his excavating business.

"We're not a heavy, industrial community. We don't have a railroad here. But we do have a need for it," Masterson said. "We're never going to be a heavy, industrial community but we do need more. I'm talking to people in real estate all the time who need it."

Joe Opatik, husband of the RPC member, suggested targeting the area around the proposed Pahrump airport instead, southwest of Gamebird Road and Winchester Avenue. He said the possible transportation of dangerous chemicals through town wasn't brought up.

Resident Jodie Kelley said she was opposed to all four options.

"Once we start heavy industrial action up there it'll only spread. There will be contamination of the ground and water. It will be dominated with factories and cement factories," Kelley said. "In this area it has some of the best views in the valley."

Ron Murphy, owner of a construction company, who owns gravel pits, said its inconvenient to build homes on the east end of Mesquite, with a deeper water table requiring wells 260 to 280 feet deep. He added on East Mesquite "the biggest polluter is the landfill."

Murphy appealed for heavy industrial zoning to have a shop next to his gravel pit. At the same time he wanted 31 lots he owns zoned general commercial.

Murphy said his gravel pit won't be temporary. "I'm going to be a minimum 20 years there, then it's going to be another 20 years backfilling it."

RPC members also wrestled with an error discovered in the rezoning, where parcels were zoned heavy industrial at a higher intensity than the master plan recommended. They include areas in the easternmost developed part of Pahrump, between Higley Road and Parsons Road, south of Charleston Park Avenue and north of Industrial Road.

Lohman said the northern half was master planned for heavy industrial, the southern half for mixed use. The southern part ended up being zoned a mixture of heavy and light industrial in the comprehensive zoning ordinance passed June 20, 2007, he said.

"The issue is we discovered an error that the zoning is above what the land use allows. You've got to fix it. You can't ignore it," Lohman told the RPC.

Properties zoned light industrial don't need to be rezoned, planner Beth Lee said in the report.