How 3 Southern Nevada cities are helping real estate development move faster
The three largest municipalities in Southern Nevada said they’ve been trying to speed up the land-use planning and development processes as the private sector pleads with local government for quicker turnarounds for both residential and commercial projects.
The cities of Henderson, North Las Vegas, and Las Vegas all responded to questions from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on recent changes made to the entitlement process to cut through the red tape.
Real estate stakeholders have said the two biggest hurdles impeding development in the valley are the Bureau of Land Management, which controls 88 percent of Clark County and has been slow to release land, and municipal red tape.
The timeline for a project to go before the city of Henderson Planning Commission (and doesn’t require city council approval) has recently been cut down to about seven weeks, said Eddie Dichter, director of community development and services for Henderson. A project that requires city council action takes approximately 10 to 11 weeks.
“We’ve got two deadlines a month when they submit [plans], and we’ve got an extremely fast review process and what happens is we take all the applications that are submitted by the deadline and then we route those to all the internal and external departments to review,” he said about potential projects that have just begun the entitlement phase of development.
Perhaps because of the city’s speed and efficiency at a governmental level, Henderson is the fourth fastest-growing city in the country, according to a Axios study of U.S. Census Bureau data from 2022 to the end of last year. Only three cities, Atlanta, Fort Worth, and Raleigh are adding more residents than Henderson.
City of Las Vegas
The city of Las Vegas said the average review time for residential projects from January to November of this year has been cut down to approximately three days and six days for commercial projects.
Las Vegas spokesperson Jace Radke said so far this year, the city has approved 2,294 residential and commercial permits, and 2,072 of those were processed within three days.
“When the city received a request for a pre-application meeting from an applicant it took on average in the month of November less than a day to assign that request to a planner,” said Radke. “It takes about two days for the planner to review the request, prepare preliminary notes and schedule the meeting. After the meeting, which we typically schedule within a week or two so the applicant can meet the next submittal deadline, the applicant is giving an official project number and it is up to them to make any revisions necessary after the meeting and upload their application in time for the next application closing date to keep their project on track.”
City of North Las Vegas
The city of North Las Vegas has worked on having a quicker entitlement process, and Alfredo Melesio, director of land development and community services for the municipality, said the city strives to work at the speed of business, not the private sector.
“Two hard numbers are once the applicant applies, we can get them an answer, yes or no, within 60 to 90 days, however some of the entitlement are special use permits that required board approval,” he said. “And for people who have loans or contingent contracts that’s very useful for them because they don’t have those carrying costs while they decide whether or not they want to buy a property.”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
