Guest home, commercial kennel planning regs change

Resident Sam Jones rose to complain to Nye County commissioners Tuesday about his objections to a bill on expanding residences grandfathered into existing regulations and accessory buildings.

“I feel that anybody that owns their own property should be able to add to or take away at any time they choose and they shouldn’t need to pay the government anything,” Jones said. When questioned by Commissioner Dan Schinhofen, he professed to be against all planning and zoning.

The only problem is, Nye County Planning Director Bobby Lewis said the bill he rose to object to would relax building codes. Commissioners Tuesday passed that bill and two other planning bills.

Bill 2014-06 will allow residential dwelling units grandfathered into existing regulations to be expanded, providing the expanded buildings aren’t larger than the grandfathered building itself. It will also allow residential accessory buildings and structures like garages and storage sheds to be added to those grandfathered uses in commercial and industrial zones without a conditional use permit.

Bill 2014-08 will allow guest residences up to 1,500 square feet to be constructed as a permissive use in the village residential VR-10 and VR-20 zones, which means a conditional use permit is no longer required. The VR-10 zone has minimum lot sizes of 10,000 square feet, the VR-20 zone has a minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet.

Bill 2014-01 removes commercial kennels as a permitted use with a conditional use permit in the RE-1 and RE-2 zones, which are rural estate zones with one acre or two-acre minimum parcel sizes. They would continue to be allowed in the RH 4.5 and RH 9.5 zones, which are rural homestead residential zones with parcels a minimum of 4 1/2 acres and 9 1/2 acres. A commercial kennel is where dogs or cats are boarded and kept for commercial purposes, including breeding, boarding and/or training.

Commissioner Frank Carbone wanted to postpone action on bill 2014-07, which would change the process of appealing administrative decisions on zoning, because there were a lot of changes made to the bill and he wanted an explanation on the types of actions that require public hearings.

Commissioners scheduled public hearings for six more planning bills on May 19.

Bill 2014-10 allows the use of alternative material, like interlocking pavers, brick, natural stone, eco-blocks, poured concrete or porous asphalt for off-street parking spaces instead of requiring two inches of asphalt or a double layer of chip seal. For businesses with six or less parking spaces, dust palliatives can be considered as an alternative to paving.

Bill 2010 reduces the minimum separation required between homes and accessory buildings from 10 feet to three feet, the same as the Uniform Building Code.

A development agreement was scheduled on improvements at Spring Mountain Motorsports. The agreement would allow up to 100 residential lots, 100,000 square feet of warehouse and storage space, 50,000 square feet of retail and office space, two additional control towers up to 48 feet high, up to a mile of additional track, an additional 250,000 square feet of paddock area, including a six-acre lake, a water and sewer treatment plant, up to 50 recreational vehicle spaces, two additional guard towers, two additional underpasses or overpasses to access portions of the track and two additional clubhouse facilities.

Up to 20 special events would be allowed per year for more than 300 people but less than 1,000 and up to six outdoor festivals with over 1,000 people.

Bills amending Nye County codes on zoning medical marijuana establishments and permitting individuals to cultivate marijuana even with a county dispensary will be on the same agenda.

A hearing was scheduled on bill 2014-19 amending the development agreement with Tonopah Solar Energy LLC for the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, which is nearly complete on Pole Line Road. SolarReserve, which is the parent company of Tonopah Solar Energy LLC, agreed to hire 90 percent of its work force from Nevada, excluding supervisors, management, equipment supply advisers and technical advisers. The company is obligated to pay $100,000 for each 10 percent it fell short of that goal.