The Douglas County Planning Commission considered Ordinance 2021-1589, a comprehensive set of proposed amendments to the county’s building-permit allocation (growth management) ordinance, and voted to forward its discussions and recommended edits to the Board of County Commissioners without recommending approval or denial.

The proposed ordinance would make multiple changes to Title 20.560, including clarifying how accessory dwelling unit allocations are classified; shifting issuance of allocations from fiscal to calendar year; limiting carryover and use of unused allocations (the “excess pools”); striking a banking-and-borrowing provision; and directing periodic review of decennial census data to inform allocation procedures.

Staff Deputy Director Sam Booth summarized the package, explaining the proposed changes were prompted by Board direction after a July presentation of historical allocation data and pending projects. “This section is amended to state that allocations will be issued annually for each calendar year,” Booth told the commission, adding staff recommended several phrasing adjustments to avoid unintended changes to the ordinance’s 2% growth rate over the 50-year projection.

Presenters and public witnesses offered conflicting views. Jim Slade, chairman of the Sustainable Growth Committee, urged protections that preserve long-term limits on growth, arguing the allocation system was adopted to protect groundwater, infrastructure and the county’s rural character. “The goals of SGC were, of course, to control growth to a level our natural and fiscal resources can support,” Slade said.

Representing industry, Aaron West of the Nevada Builders Alliance urged caution against sudden substantive changes and asked for more data and stakeholder input. He noted that since 2007 the county has used only a fraction of the allotted permits and that entitlement and market factors kept construction below the 2% glide path.

Legal counsel for the county, Deputy District Attorney Sam Taylor, advised that while the board can redistribute allocations between pools by resolution, it cannot eliminate the total number of allocations in the 50-year projection without first taking the change to voters. Commissioners debated mechanisms to distribute excess allocations over time — staff proposed a 10% annual cap on issuing from the pools and an expiration mechanism that staff later recommended striking. Several commissioners proposed alternate approaches, including capping issuance by a fixed number per year instead of a percentage.

After extended public comment, including from local developers who said their projects and significant investments rely on the current allocation framework, the commission did not take a recommendation to approve or deny the ordinance. Instead Commissioner Bridal moved that the commission forward the record of its discussion and the staff changes to the Board of County Commissioners without an overall endorsement; Mark seconded. The motion passed 5–1 (Commissioner Bryce opposed). The commission’s packet and staff presentation will form the basis of the report the board will review when it takes up the ordinance.

Commissioners asked staff to provide clearer redlines and the specific draft language for any recommended edits so the public and board members can review the exact changes. The Board of County Commissioners will receive the planning commission’s materials for further consideration.