CAB members Greg Prough and Max Bartmess voted to increase the industrial use land cap from 7.25 percent to 9.1 percent, and both members also voted to approve the land amendment from open space to industrial use.
Board member Darcy Smernis voted against both issues and Chairman Vaughn Hartung, along with Ed Goodrich and Steve Grosz, abstained from voting. Nick Zufelt was absent.
Attorney Bob Sader, who represents Hawco Homes and Spanish Springs Associates, said he was at the meeting to do what the board wanted regarding the request, but that there had been no changes to the plan since the meeting on March 11.
Confident with the project, Prough motioned to approve the project but Spanish Springs resident Dan Herman said he wanted to address the board before it voted.
“I am still very concerned,” Herman said. “I am seeing 100 acres of open space being transferred to the developer. Isn’t that open space part of the plan we wanted in the community?”
Herman said he believes Hawco has been a good neighbor but that he didn’t want his property to be surrounded by industry, so he said he would put together a request to rezone his land as well.
“I wish to rezone my property from low density suburban to commercial use,” Herman said.
Hartung said he would support Herman in his request and urged him to make a formal request. Hartung added that he would always support property owners as long as they go through the process correctly, which entails speaking with a county planner.
“I will stand behind that process because I believe there are some inadequacies that have occurred and I’d rather support a developer like you than some others,” Hartung told Herman.
Addressing Herman’s concerns over the use of the land in Boneyard Flats as industrial instead of open space, Sader explained that Hawco has more than 300,000 acres of land in Spanish Springs and was asked to give more than 320 acres of land to Washoe County as a gift for its flood detention facility project in 1999.
Sader said that shortly after the land was gifted, the county said it had changed its plans and would not need the land.
“This open space was done for one purpose: for the flood detention basin. There was never going to be a park,” Sader said. “It’s just in a different category. We never thought it was an community asset other than a flood detention basin.”
Sader said that the land is in a different category from other open land and is not the same as Bureau of Land Management space that people can hike, bike or camp on. He said that the land is private land and not open for public use.
Before the board voted to move the project forward, Smernis said she was concerned with the influx of traffic that would be accessing the industrial park from Pyramid Highway. She said the two-lane section of the highway that would allow workers access to Ingenuity Avenue was unsafe.
Sader said the road study showed that the added traffic should not overwhelm the highway. He added that the company would hope that out of more than 1,000 jobs that could be created from the project, many of the available positions would go to area residents.
Although Smernis said she would not vote for the project based on traffic safety concerns, Hartung said he is usually inundated with calls about land use amendments from residents who asked to be informed on new projects and issues. He said that he did not receive any phone calls in regard to this project.
The project will now go before the Washoe County Planning Commission for approval.
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