Open house highlights possible Spring Valley land-use changes

The final open house to take resident input on the Spring Valley Land Use Plan was held July 31 at the Desert Breeze Community Center. The plan is to address proposed development in Spring Valley, a community of roughly 22,865 acres.

Land use plans determine appropriate development for an area. Spring Valley includes ZIP codes 89103, 89113, 89117, 89118, 89146, 89147 and 89148.

People trickled in the moment the doors opened. Inside were three Clark County representatives, each at a large table with placards, specific to certain areas.

Gwen Pearce’s home is near Jones Boulevard and Russell Road and was built about 18 years ago. She said she’s watched the neighborhood grow up around her. What was her concern?

“We have a lot of desert on the corners in our vicinity,” she said, “and we’re wondering what’s going to be popping up around there. Right now, it’s homes, but we’re concerned.”

Pearce said she’d like to see only homes zoned for those sites, as that would be beneficial for property values.

“It looks like it’s going from open land to commercial,” Pearce said. “We want to know what type (of commercial) … the road has become very busy, so we’re sort of concerned.”

David Anderson’s family has lived in the area since 1942. His home is near Rainbow Boulevard and Sahara Avenue.

“It’s important to be here because this is where the planning is happening,” he said. “We’re in a rural neighborhood. In order to keep it a rural neighborhood, you have to stay on top of it. If you don’t come and see (what’s proposed), then you don’t know what’s going on. We want to make sure we stay custom rural. It’s going to be a challenge. I mean, it’s good that (the town is) growing, but you don’t want them to tromp on everything.”

Manning one of the tables was Shane Ammerman, county assistant planning manager. He said most people “just want to see if there’s anything going on in their area. We don’t have that many changes compared to other land use plans. So, a lot of the people won’t be impacted. But still, we’re required to send cards out.”

Kevin Smedley, county principal planner, also was there.

“The majority of changes are just on the vacant land,” he said. “There are some requests to change some of the stuff that’s planned, light industrial or commercial to residential. Those are the majority of the requests that we’re seeing. There’s also land that used to be restricted to not allow for residential. Since … the Federal Aviation Administration did a sound study a while ago, it was decided that the restrictions could be lifted. So, a lot of those lands that was open land or planned for other things are now being planned for residential uses.”

Smedley said the proposed land uses changed “very little” land from residential to commercial.

“Usually it’s something that’s already there (zoned commercial), and they want to do a little bit of retail sales and an office or something like that,” he said.

The plan was updated in 2009, and it’s common for it to be updated about every five years, said county spokesman Dan Kulin. That updating required getting public input. For the July 31 meeting, more than 55,000 postcards were mailed out, alerting residents of the open house at the center, 8275 Spring Mountain Road.

Input gathered helped form a proposed draft plan that now goes to the Spring Valley Town Advisory Board, the County Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners for review and approval. Portions of Spring Valley are in Districts A and F.

A planning commission public hearing is set for 7 p.m. Sept 2, and a Board of County Commissioners public hearing is slated for 9 a.m. Oct. 8, both in the Clark County Government Center, 500 S. Grand Central Parkway.

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Contact Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.