GROWTH: No slowdown for boomtown

     Two veteran county commissioners looked at the boom town where they'd grown up, launched careers and raised families, and cringed at the darker side of growth.
      This was August 1991, and the rapid expansion of the casino industry had allowed the Las Vegas Valley to boast of abundant jobs, a robust economy and an exciting lifestyle. But a population increase of more than 30,000 a year -- enough people to fill a small city -- also had resulted in jammed roads, crowded schools and a dwindling water supply.
      So the pair of politicians called for policies that would promote moderate, controlled growth, with Commissioner Bruce Woodbury saying, "The days of unlimited growth ... are over because of the extra financial and environmental costs of excessive growth."
      He was wrong. The explosive growth continues. Today, with more than 60,000 newcomers squeezing into the valley each year, the undesirable side effects of growth are more pronounced, with local politicians scrambling to find ways to pay for needed roads, schools, sewer plants and water systems.
      Back in 1991, the "sustained managed growth" initiative proposed by Woodbury and then-Commissioner Paul Christensen received study and attention for 18 months before quietly dying. It has taken an infrastructure crisis for the debate on growth to re-emerge.
      To flesh out the commissioners' proposal, county planners suggested certain tools for managing growth. To prevent leap-frog development while reducing the cost of providing services, they recommended discouraging urban development beyond certain boundaries.
      So-called urban growth boundaries are used in Portland, Ore., a city Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones has praised as a model in its handling of growth. Planning advocates in Oregon have credited the boundaries with keeping investment strong in downtown Portland and inner-city neighborhoods, objectives that local politicians are struggling to achieve.
      Clark County's planners also proposed that plans for providing public services be in place before granting development approvals. Florida requires its communities to take a similar approach to prevent the sort of infrastructure backlog the Las Vegas Valley faces.
      Under the planners' recommendations, effects on air quality could be taken into account in making land-use and zoning decisions in the county, which today is in jeopardy of losing federal funding because of its dirty air.
      They also proposed setting an annual growth rate, a strategy used by communities including Boulder City and Carson City. And they asked for regional cooperation in planning, an idea recently resurrected by Jones and County Commission Chairwoman Yvonne Atkinson Gates.
      But sustained managed growth was not a hit with the business community. The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Associated General Contractors' Las Vegas chapter, and the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association opposed key provisions.
      The home builders, for example, objected to growth boundaries and growth caps, as well as the requirement that plans for providing public services be in place before new development could be approved.
      Critics chided the county for trying to control growth.
      "It is not the county's responsibility or obligation to control 'explosive growth' but rather to accommodate growth as it occurs," wrote the Realtors association in comments to the two commissioners.
      The Chamber of Commerce agreed. Casino executive Robert Maxey, then the chamber's chairman, wrote, "The county's primary responsibility is to provide the necessary infrastructure. It is not to 'manage' the community so that it reflects the ideals of the staff and the commission."
      Maxey's remarks also reflected the common assumption at the time that growth was slowing down. "As of today, the market has taken care of the major problems of explosive growth," he said. "Ask any construction worker, if (explosive growth) is over."
      The final draft of the sustained managed growth strategy replaced county planners' ideas with changes suggested by the home builders association. Not that it mattered. The document was forwarded to a committee that included representatives of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, the school district and the Chamber of Commerce. The committee could not reach a consensus on implementing any measures on a regional basis.
      After the chilly reception from the business community and then from neighboring cities, neither Woodbury nor Christensen nor any other official called for broader public discussion of the initiative.
      Some components survived, though, at least for a while. Clark County did impose Portland-like urban boundaries in unincorporated areas of the county, but continually revised them until last year, when it discarded most of the requirements for inclusion in a growth area.
      Of course, aspects of sustained managed growth might have been unpalatable to the general community, and not just to those whose livelihoods depend on rapid growth.
      For example, setting a cap on growth rates forces housing prices upward, which isn't popular with anyone who might want to buy a home. What's more, without the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson adopting similar caps, development merely would have shifted from the unincorporated areas of the county to these jurisdictions.
      More generally, many believe the local economy flourishes when the local government keeping its meddling to a minimum.
      Still, opposition from home builders and others in the business community undercut the initiative before the general public had a chance to debate its merits and shortcomings.
      Don Schlesinger, who served a single term as a county commissioner, believes the lack of substantive debate on growth-related issues reflects certain political realities.
      "Elected officials have thrived by not rocking the boat," said Schlesinger, who was elected in 1990 on a platform for managing growth. "Make no mistake about it: Until recently, elected officials who spoke openly for the need for the development community to provide more funds to support infrastructure were marginalized."
      Politicians supported by the gaming and development interests traditionally have been able to amass huge campaign funds to ward off credible challengers, Schlesinger said.
      The message these donors delivered to their candidates, according to the former commissioner, has been: "Allow us to grow with as little interference as possible from government. Let us build and worry about the problems tomorrow." Schlesinger was unseated in 1994 by Erin Kenny.
      Some planning officials suggest that local government has assumed the role of assisting development, rather than controlling it.
      "This has been a very pro-growth community, there's no doubt about it," said John Schlegel, a planner for the city of Las Vegas.
      Local government, for example, has allowed growth to go forward before public services are in place. "What they do is build, and we catch up," said Schlegel, acting director for planning and development.
      In recent months the issue of where to find the money to catch up has seized the attention of local politicians, who are debating at length possible funding sources. Occasionally, they turn their attention to what more, if anything, should be done to manage growth.
      Jones and Atkinson Gates have advocated forming a regional planning board in an effort to promote orderly growth. But Atkinson Gates has stressed that the board should have no binding authority on its member jurisdictions.
      Jones, who describes the valley's quality of life as "mediocre at best," has proposed sending "venture teams" to observe what other cities are doing right and what they are doing wrong in handling growth.
      But Jeff Soule of the American Planning Association believes the community may have missed an important step in the planning process.
      That step, he said, is a vigorous public debate on what the community hopes to become. Without this awareness, Jones' venture teams won't know what they're looking for and the exercise, he said, will become a "feel-good thing."
      "In no way, shape or form should you shortchange this process of coming up with a real bona fide picture of where you're going to be 10, 15 years out," continued Soule, the policy director for the nonprofit, public interest and research organization. "That's the insurance policy for the children. That's the kind of community they're going to inherit."
      Local officials say that at various times, individual governments and agencies in Southern Nevada have attempted long-term planning. What is lacking, some say, is a larger vision for the entire valley.
      "A lot of people think they know what infrastructure means," said environmental activist Jeff van Ee. "And they think they know what quality of life means. But I don't think we've defined it as a community."
      Through legislation, Florida has forced its communities to address some of these complex issues by requiring them to adopt growth plans.
      A cornerstone of all Florida plans is the policy of "concurrency," which means no local development permit can be issued unless public facilities will be available concurrent with the impacts of development. Public facilities include those for water, sewer, solid-waste disposal, mass transit, roads, and parks and recreation. Enforcement of the plans varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
      "It takes real political will, a willingness on the part of local elected officials, to adhere to the plan," said Tom Pelham, president of the American Planning Association's Florida chapter. "Where there's a lot of growth pressure, it's tough."
      Despite such growth pressures in the Las Vegas Valley, there have been hints that the climate is becoming more tolerant of debate on the issues.
      Woodbury recently has said that if the community can't come together on funding infrastructure, he might favor limiting the number of hotel rooms that could be built on the Strip. Even casino boss Steve Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc., told a group of hundreds of business people in January that "it probably is time for us to slow it down just a little."
      Yet these comments may not be as bold as they first appeared. Even if miraculously empowered to impose such a cap, Woodbury said he'd first have to give it more thought.
      "Unless consensus can be reached on limiting growth," he said, "we have to accommodate it as much as possible."
      As for Wynn, he had no specific proposals on how growth might be slowed. What's more, Mirage Resorts spokesman Alan Feldman said Wynn's comments had been blown out of proportion.
      "Growth isn't the enemy" of the community, said spokesman Alan Feldman.
      "Growth," he said, "is the salvation."
      A cartoon has circulated among government planners that shows passengers on a thrill ride throwing up their hands and shrieking "No Steering!" and "No Brakes!" The passengers are local residents, the ride is growth.
      What the cartoon doesn't show is that maybe, just maybe, some of the thrill is gone. Despite this, how politicians and the rest of the community hope to respond to the threat rapid growth poses to quality of life is no more clear today than it was five years ago."We need to elect officials who vote and think with conviction, not with the emotion of the moment, not with the attitude,
     'Will this hurt my chances for re-election?' "