Public weighs in on proposed annexation of private land

For the last several months, Acting City Manager Michael Mays told the council that city staff has been working with the owners of a small plot of land in the Eldorado Valley who have requested annexation. In other words, they would like to be a part of Boulder City.

It might seem like a “nothing burger” to many observers. Boulder City is, in terms of land area, the largest city in Nevada. (The purchase and annexation of most of the Eldorado Valley in the 1990s expanded the city limits to cover an area of more than 200 square miles.) So, what is the issue with adding four more acres?

As public comment reinforced, it potentially illustrates the passions at play over the issue at the heart of almost every issue in Boulder City. Development. Or, rather, how to control and limit it.

The land in question is bordered by Boulder City land on three sides and US-95 on the other side. The owners have, in addition to the annexation request, already submitted an application to have the zoning of the land changed in order to allow them to build an office/warehouse complex.

The process for annexation consists of multiple steps. The request was made and brought to the council back in May. The council unanimously approved a resolution directing staff to begin the process of considering annexation.

The next step was a staff report on extension of city services to the land proposed for annexation. That report was prepared and accepted by the council on June 10.

The next step in the process is a public hearing, which is what happened at last week’s council meeting. However, if one looks at state law, it is pretty obvious that the kind of hearing that happened on July 9 is different from what was assumed the statute.

This is because annexation is usually an adversarial process. The hearing, as described in NRS 268.590, is envisioned as the time when the owners of the property can protest the annexation and, if a majority of the owners protest, then the annexation can’t take place.

But in this case, the owners themselves have requested the annexation. The question is why they would want to subject themselves to an additional layer of governmental scrutiny and regulation and taxation. The answer, as is often the case in the Mojave, is water. Or, rather, access to it.

If the land is part of Boulder City, then the city has to provide services. The owners of the property have said that they plan to get electricity from a third-party provider and will use a septic system for wastewater. But, according to the report to the council, the latest addition to BC would get water via the extension of an existing city water line to service the property.

And that fact drove the limited amount of public comment in the short hearing.

One commenter in the room asked how this would impact infrastructure and worried about setting a precedent for other property owners. He asked for answers but, as council can’t respond to public comment during the meetings, none was proffered.

Former mayor Kiernan McManus gave comment via a phone call. “What can be said other than that this violates nearly all of the tenets of growth in Boulder City that have served the city so well for decades,” he said. “This annexation simply shatters the master plan directive that development occur with contiguous development by only developing parcels that are within close proximity to existing development.”

As this was only a public hearing, no actual action was taken by the council. In the next steps, a proposed bill for the annexation will be introduced at the council meeting, scheduled for August 13, with a vote on that bill set for Aug. 27.