The growth and annexation amendment will have two more public hearings before the Regional Planning Commission: Feb. 22, 6:30 p.m., Truckee Meadows Community College, Room B206 in the Vista Building, 7000 Dandini Blvd. Feb. 27, 6:30 p.m., Galena High School cafeteria, 3600 Butch Cassidy Way, off Mount Rose Highway.
Connie Douglas almost apologized for not being another land owner asking to be added to a regional plan amendment that could open up to 140,000 acres for development over the next 100 years in Washoe County.
"I have lived in Spanish Springs for 10 years and 50 years in Washoe County," Douglas said Wednesday night at a public hearing at Sparks High School. "I have seen an awful lot of changes. This one amazes me."
Douglas said she was shocked to learn up to 8,700 homes could be built at the Winnemucca Ranch at the north end of Warm Springs Valley. That would put more traffic on the Pyramid Highway.
"I can't make a left turn on the highway now as developers have rushed in over the last few years and services have not kept up," she said.
Douglas was one of a handful of residents who spoke up at the hearing on a growth and annexation amendment to the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan. About 40 people were at the hearing, with two more scheduled this month.
Bob Marshall, owner of a 2,000-acre ranch south of the Winnemucca Ranch, said he was flabbergasted that his ranch was left off the map outlining where new communities could be built. Marshall for years has collected water rights to sell to developers in Lemmon Valley. He said he can't make money ranching and the land is more valuable if designated for development.
John Rhodes, an assistant district attorney and Steamboat Hills area resident, also said he was disappointed his land was not on the map.
'The development pie'
"Staff in effect cut up what's left of the development pie," said Rhodes. "No land owner had any input in that process."
In August, Reno, Sparks and Washoe County officials agreed to settle a lawsuit by dividing land needed for growth for the next 25 years. To carry out the growth plan, staff and a few elected officials prepared the regional amendment and growth map.
Within 25 years, the Winnemucca Ranch would be developed on private land. Reno and Washoe County officials would fill in the gaps after federal lands are sold when a bill is approved by Congress. Sparks would grow to the east.
John Hester, Reno community development director, and Sparks planner Margaret Powell said they don't expect all the public lands suitable for development would be proposed for auction. Hester said the City Council wants to hire a planner to work with interest groups on a public lands bill.
Hester said the city has no interest in developing prime wildlife habitat.
But Katherine Smith, a university retiree in Reno, said the special areas should be carved out now before being placed on the annexation map.
"We need make sure big swaths of public land stays in open space," she said. "If you don't specific that now, we won't have it."
"Send it back to the drawing board for all the pre-planning and pre-submittal work you normally require for any development coming before you," Reno conservationist Tina Nappe told the commission. "As it looks on paper, it assumes increased urban sprawl with air pollution, transportation nightmares and insufficient water."
City planners said they view the annexation and growth map as a chalkboard. Powell said the latest planning tools can be used to change the development patterns approved over the last 40 years.
"We have an extremely rare opportunity," Hester said, in planning 100 years of growth. "We will have twice as much land as we have now."