By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Town Advisory Board (MTAB), in a meeting held Tuesday January 31, granted a two year extension of time to the Riverview project, a major development being proposed for Glendale and parts of Moapa.

The size and scope of the Riverview project has undergone many changes since it began the major development process in 2006. Beginning as a nearly 1500 acre project with 6,782 proposed units, over the years the project has been whittled down to about 3,660 units on a little over 800 acres.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Bonnie Rinaldi, spokesperson for Riverview developer, Glendale Holdings, stated that her current request would now include several more minor changes to the plan.

“We have been working slowly but surely toward coming to a development agreement with the county that will lock into place all the plans that we have discussed with you,” Rinaldi told MTAB members.

As plans had continued to move forward, Riverview officials had found that the county had changed some of the processes and land use categories, Rinaldi said. This meant that changes were required to the Riverview plans to bring them into compliance with county procedures, she said.

The minor changes were mainly in the two proposed commercial districts within the development. The developer had assigned commercial designations which would give enough flexibility to allow for mixed use areas with commercial, residential and even some light industrial areas in the same sectors.

In the northern portion of the development was planned a small commercial district of a few shops surrounded by residential units.

“That was some flexibility that we had built in for long term planning,” Rinaldi said. “The county’s designation doesn’t allow commercial to be mixed with residential. So in the north village, we are taking our “Village Center” designation and changing it to the county’s “Commercial Neighborhood” designation which doesn’t allow residential uses in there long-term.”

Similarly in the town center area which is planned to straddle the I-15 Glendale interchange, the developer’s commercial designation didn’t match the county’s, Rinaldi said.

“We had more flexibility built in ours allowing for residential uses there and some light industrial warehouse, office flex space or workshop building,” Rinaldi said. “The county’s land use catergories were more restrictive so where the RIverview called it Town Center and Town Center Tourist, the county is Commercial General and Commercial Tourist.”

MTAB member Don Davis observed that the changes seemed to make commercial areas of the plan outweigh the residential areas being proposed. But Rinaldi said that, while the names of the designations and the colors on the map were being changed, nothing had changed in the developer’s plans.

“That was one of the issues of why we wanted the flexibility in the past,” Rinaldi said. “Our intention , for example, was that the west side of that (Glendale) town center would be mostly residential. SO what we are doing is the closest match that we can to county land use category. Then later we can ask for special permits and get residential use in there as well. It is a little less direct and less straight forward. But we are not at all changing our ultimate plan. We are still expecting residential in the town center areas.”