North Las Vegas paves way for innovative housing development
The North Las Vegas City Council took an early step Wednesday toward bringing a large housing development to a vacant lot on the city’s northern edge.
Council members unanimously voted to rezone more than 85 acres near Deer Springs Way and Losee Road to make way for a major development that will be the site of nearly 1,200 homes.
“It isn’t your same old, same old development,” Ward 4 Councilman Richard Cherchio said.
The land, to be developed by Touchstone Living, will have a mix of single family homes, duplexes, fourplexes and six-plexes. Cherchio said the goal is to create a walkable community with a nearby job creation district.
“Comparing it to what we’d normally approve over here with single family homes and all, it’s pretty much like comparing apples and oranges,” Cherchio said.
Plans for the development also call for large open spaces in two central areas and walking trails that will connect to the 215 Beltway trail system, which abuts the northern edge of the development, North Las Vegas Chief of Staff Delen Goldberg said.
Ward 1 Councilman Isaac Barron said during the meeting that he hopes the project will be the future of development in the city.
Dustin Manning, vice president of land development for Touchstone Living, said his company is ready to start building as soon as it obtains permits. The project is expected to take between three and five years to complete, he said. Manning would not say how expensive the homes would be but expected them to be affordable for young couples and families.
The development would fill a patch of desert near the VA Medical Center and one of the city’s “job creation zones.” City officials want to attract more medical jobs to the zone, which the city accepted from the federal government for free.
“We’re expecting this project to allow future businesses to see where their labor force is going to come from,” Mayor John Lee said.
Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.
