April 3, 2008
Paying for the Cost of Growth

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

Projection by experts at University of Nevada Reno Cooperative Extension Service see Lincoln County growing at unprecedented 2400 percent over the next 10-15 years. The rate of growth is so large it is off the charts. The County is facing a greater planning challenge than any non-metro county has ever faced, anytime, anywhere.

Two meetings were held in March sponsored by the County Planning Department and Professors of the Extension Service at UNR. Holly Gatzke, Lincoln County Cooperative Extension Agent said the meeting March 31 at the School Board room in Panaca was a public workshop that identified eight points of concern on how the County will pay for this unprecedented growth over the years.

UNR Professors Tom Harris, Buddy Borden and Ted Olesen were also involved in the video teleconference workshop.

The points Mrs. Gatzke said the UNR professors will be working on are both short term and long term.

• Contact the State of Utah for growth models in St. George and Cedar City.
• Investigate General Improvement District development plan agreements for new development near Reno.
• Work on a new expanded White Paper (A white paper is an authoritative report. White papers are used to educate customers, collect leads for a company, or help people make decisions) for use in Lincoln County.
• Fiscal trend monitoring using existing figures with estimated growth patterns.
• Profile different demands with different populations.
• Identify from past development plans at what points certain essential services were added in.
• Simulation models that can create given scenarios. „O Tax questions.

The various service agencies involving law enforcement, education, medical, government and human resources within the County will be affected by what information is collected pertaining to these basic points in the coming years.

Also businesses and land use issues will need to be addressed Mrs. Gatzke said, ˇ§So they can plan proactively for bringing in those things that provide a return and not a loss to the community income wise.ˇ¨

To start with, Coyote Springs and the Toquop development have to answer questions such as what types of services will be needed and expected by the new residents in the growth areas of the County, in particular. She said it needs to be recognized that ˇ§These newcomers would largely have different expectations of the level of services and roads, etc, than current residents of Lincoln County would have.ˇ¨ Taking that into consideration, the questions can be asked, ˇ§What the government agencies would have to provide for services without shorting the rest of the people of the County that are currently there?ˇ¨ she said.

ˇ§There is a huge difference in focus when the people moving in are retirement age and would need more medical services and request for Community Centers,ˇ¨ Holly noted, ˇ§versus young families who need schools and park to play inˇKWe really need to know the profile of who will be moving in. Admittedly, there are a lot of ˇĄWhat ifs?ˇ¦" she said.

Such knowledge will help in deciding what kind of services are needed at the beginning as well as making a large difference in the type of housing that is built first and the taxes that would come in.

The federal government as well as the State have mandated new services for counties and cities that have to be implemented in new development. Holly said those mandated services are not being covered currently and present taxes are not covering those costs either. ˇ§Right now,ˇ¨ she said, ˇ§we bring in less money than it costs us to do things, so the state makes up that difference. We actually get as much from the State as we bring in for taxes, so we would have to double our tax income just to break even right now, let alone with additional mandated services added and additional population.ˇ¨ How to do that is a complex, but important issue, she said.

County planners are posing different scenarios of what will be have to be done if a given number of people come in, what will be needed for services, infrastructure, schools, utilities, government, employees and facilities.

Mrs. Gatzke said the UNR professors said that in many cases the operating costs in the future for government facilities and services are much higher than the initial cost of building.

State tax restrictions have caused problems in several other developments around Nevada, she said, but are also very complicated and difficult to put into the planning equations of future growth. General Improvement Districts donˇ¦t necessarily cover all of the costs the County and cities are responsible for, Holly noted.

The housing market slow down has been helpful to the County Planning Department in their efforts to take all these questions into account. It has given them time to develop avenues of direction rather than being overwhelmed at the outset.

Holly said the March 31 meeting dealt mainly with the many questions that have already been raised. ˇ§It was decided that we really need to go out there and investigate what they do know is out there.ˇ¨ Information gathered from other areas that have grown rapidly, such as St. George and Cedar City, Utah, as well as Reno, is being examined. Yet, at 2400 percent growth expected, models from anywhere else will be only a drop in the bucket for what Lincoln County faces.

Itˇ¦s a daunting task for the small staff that the County has to work on these problems, Mrs. Gatzke admits, ˇ§Although there has been a lot of work done, we need to figure out more work needs to go onˇKWe really donˇ¦t know yet what weˇ¦re missing to do a good job to plan in a positive aspect for future development. It takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of investigation.ˇ¨

The next meeting of the group is scheduled for May 8 at Panaca and Alamo from 2-4 pm.