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MVTAB Votes To Deny Zoning Request

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) voted to deny a request to vacate a small segment of Overton right of way during a meeting held on Wednesday, July 26. The request, which was the only zoning item on the evening’s agenda, was made by William Wall of St. George, Utah who was in attendance at the meeting.

Wall owns two 2-acre parcels located directly east and across the river from the Cooper Road/Stringtown area of Overton. The parcels are located between the Allen Steward St. alignment and Ishimoto Street, a block north of the Ryan Ave. alignment. No street improvements have been made as yet in the area.

Wall explained that he was requesting to vacate and abandon the two blocks of Allen Steward St. right of way, just north of Ryan Ave. The topography of that area were not suitable for building a street there, he claimed. Wall explained that a rough engineering estimate had stated that 10,000 cubic yards of material would need to be moved in order to create a roadbed through that area.

Wall said that he had applied for a building permit on one of the parcels. But this process included agreeing to a covenant that he would have to pay for building the road through there at some point in the future, if ever needed. This covenant concerned him.
“It is not saying that I have to build it now,” Wall said. “But it seems that it will be some big surprise sometime in the future.”

MVTAB chairman Gene Houston discounted the likelihood of that future day ever coming. He stated that requiring the covenant was fairly standard procedure in similar building lots throughout the community.
“Just about every property in the valley almost, has that covenant,” Houston said. “But you can see by the number of dirt roads that we have that it is never really imposed.”

Houston emphasized, however, that he was not excited about giving up public rights of way. The rights of way are required to be dedicated when lots are formed in case they are ever needed for public use, he said.
“If we give it up now, we will never get it back when and if it is ever needed,” Houston said. “We have seen it again and again in the community.”

Houston told Wall it would be better to go ahead and move forward with the building permit, including the covenant. Then, if necessary, Wall could come back and ask for a waiver on the requirement to build a road through the area, Houston said. That way, the right of way would be retained if it should ever be needed.

Wall then stated that he had hoped to be able to do some dirtwork from the right of way. He explained that he had wanted to move some of the material from a natural plateau which is crossed the right of way. He wanted to use that material to fill an arroyo on his property. He had already gotten written consent and approval from the adjacent property owners to do this, he said.
“I wanted to just kind of rough in that road and take some of that material,” Wall said.
Houston said that there was nothing preventing him from doing that. “You can grade the road there and use the dirt on the lot all day long if you want to,” he said.

But Wall said that, in order to do this in the right of way, county staff had instructed him that he would have to grade the road to its road bed. That was moving much more dirt than he wanted to do, he said. Thus he was asking for the vacation of right of way.

Houston stated that he was concerned about setting a precedent in granting the vacation. “Once you set the precedent, then you have everyone else coming in and saying I don’t want that road in my area and asking us to vacate it. I have a problem with that.”

Houston made the motion to deny the vacation of right of way. The board approved the motion unanimously.

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