Developer: State Legislature plan targets company that wants to build near Red Rock Canyon

A proposed law unfairly targets the developer of a planned housing community near Red Rock Canyon, the company’s spokesman said Friday.

Assembly Bill 277 would freeze zoning changes on lands inside the state’s national conservation areas and national recreation areas. It would also enact a 5-mile zone around the conservation areas with the same zoning freeze.

Gypsum Resources and developer Jim Rhodes have been trying for more than a decade to build a 5,000-home community on Blue Diamond Hill, an area near Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area that would fall under the proposed buffer zone.

“At least upon initial review, AB 277 seems to focus primarily on our property,” Ron Krater, project spokesman for Gypsum Resources, said during the bill’s hearing in the Assembly government affairs committee in Las Vegas on Friday.

Current zoning allows for no more than about 1,200 homes to be built on the roughly 2,000 acres of the historic gypsum mine.

Krater said AB277 was “strikingly similar” to the 2003 law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Nevada Supreme Court because it only applied to the areas around Red Rock.

But Legislature counsel Kevin Powers said AB277 gets around that ruling because it applies generally across the state’s conservation and recreation areas, rather than to a single jurisdiction.

HEFTY SUPPORT

About 60 people packed the legislative hearing room in Las Vegas in support of the bill.

Dozens of environmental activists, scientists and outdoor enthusiasts made similar testimony in support of the bill: building thousands of homes on Blue Diamond Hill would ruin the majesty Red Rock Canyon and the escape from civilization it offers.

At 24 sponsors and co-sponsors, the bill has enough Assembly members on board to be able to clear the chamber and be sent on to the Senate.

OTHER OPPOSITION

David Fraser, city manager for Boulder City, reluctantly testified against the bill.

“I feel a little strange appearing in opposition to this bill,” Fraser said, noting the city is committed to conservation of the state’s natural resources and wildlife.

Boulder City’s complaint, Fraser said, was the buffer zone that would surround Sloan Canyon National Recreation Area would handicap goals of developing solar energy plants south of the city.

The area that would fall in that buffer are zoned as study areas, Fraser said. The city uses those zones as a way to prevent development on land until it is sure what it wants to do with the area.

Boulder City plans to lease those lands to solar energy companies, he added, and the bill would prevent them from moving forward with those plans.

Fraser proposed a work-around by amending the bill to exempt municipally owned land. That, he said, would preserve the city’s zoning power for the land it owns.

No action was taken on the bill Friday.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.