Billboard owner told to remove sign on land

A local developer didn’t receive the outcome he had hoped from the Pahrump Valley Regional Planning Commission on Thursday night regarding a long-fought-over billboard.

The planning commission voted 7-0 to uphold the special conditions that they issued and were agreed upon by the billboard’s owner Andy Jordan in 2004 and again in 2006. That agreement said that he would take down a billboard that he owns at 3370 S. Highway 160 in February 2014.

Jordan originally agreed to disassemble the billboard by Feb. 4, 2014, per agreement in February 2004, as a special condition for the reclassification of the property he owns at the site of the billboard, from “open use” to “highway frontage use.”

Jordan reiterated his plans to take the billboard down in 2006, when the area of the said billboard was rezoned commercial and he applied for that permit.

“We just did a conditional use permit we put conditions on that person that we expect the person to meet,” Planning Chairman John Koeing said. “Ten years ago this board, with different people, put conditions on Mr. Jordan that he agreed to. I expect these conditions to be met. I expect conditions from a previous board be met.”

Jordan said at a previous board meeting that he felt forced into signing the agreement because if he didn’t he feared he wouldn’t be issued a building permit for the property. Jordan added that he knew several commissioners back in 2004, and they told him, “Andy, in 10 years things are going to change anyway, so I wouldn’t even worry about it.”

With the original takedown day a year past, Jordan explained that he would lose from anywhere around $3,000 to $4,000 generated by advertisers on the billboard.

“So I ask to help me out here,” Jordan said. “That’s a big income … it hurts after this recession. No building, I finally got my feet above water again, I had all these vacancies and someone wants to take it away again.”

Jordan’s advocate, Dan Simmons, asked for this instance to be set aside by the Planning Commission, as he said they would not see a similar instance like this again.

Darrell Lacy, director of the Nye County Planning Department, explained that the issue wasn’t just that one sign, but starting to clean up the billboard clutter throughout the town.

“The County Commission, this board … have all set goals to remove signs when we have the opportunity to do so,” Lacy said.

Under current law there are two ways to remove a sign. One is to pay the owner to take it down or it can be the subject of a conditional approval, according to Lacy.

Jordan refused to give comment to the Pahrump Valley Times after the meeting, stating he would reach out when he was ready to speak on the matter.