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Los Lupes Overton Location Approved By MVTAB

	Vernon Robison Moapa Valley Progress Submitted May 7, 2008 The Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) heard a request at a meeting held Wednesday, April 30, regarding plans for a new restaurant to be built near downtown Overton. The applicants, Guadalupe and Maria Martinez plan to build and operate a Los Lupes Mexican Restaurant on a 1.2 acre parcel located at Moapa Valley Blvd and Catherine Avenue in Overton. Los Lupes is a restaurant which currently has one location in Mesquite and is popular among local residents.		An artist’s rendering of the new Los Lupes restaurant being planned for Overton. Plans were brought before the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board last week and were approved.

	Logandale resident, Lon Empey, who represented the applicants at the meeting, emphasized how much the new restaurant was needed in the community. “The last structure that was built for food service in this community was 15 years ago,” Empey said. “We haven’t had a new food establishment in a long time and it is truly needed.” Plans for the restaurant depict a 3,532 square foot facility with a parapet roofline and an attractive dark tan stucco finish. Also included is a 353 square foot outdoor dining area surrounded by a five foot stucco wall and covered by a shade trellis. MVTAB members liked the look of the proposed building. “I love the design,” said MVTAB Chairwoman Judy Metz. “It looks like it will be a beautiful building. The use of desert colors and plants that you have shown here will be very nice.” Other items being requested in connection with the project required more discussion, however. The developer asked for waivers of current development standards on several items. One of these dealt with the point of access to the restaurant parking lot. Usually such an entrance is required to be made from the main road; in this case, the Moapa Valley Blvd. But the developer asked that the sole access be allowed from Catherine Ave. which is currently a small residential street. One resident of Catherine Ave. spoke in opposition to this idea. He said that he didn’t mind Catherine being used as a secondary access with the primary access being Moapa Valley Blvd. But he didn’t like the idea of a residential street bearing the whole brunt of the traffic in and out of the restaurant. “You need to think long and hard before you recommend that all that traffic is dumped out onto my street,” he said. But Metz explained that this would put the developer in a catch-22 situation. The Moapa Valley Blvd is a state highway. As such, it comes under the jurisdiction of the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT). NDOT is always restrictive about adding direct access points on the state highway, Metz said. “NDOT is actually the one that doesn’t want that entrance there,” Metz said. “There isn’t much that the county can do about that.” An even more sticky subject, however, was that of the required improvements to the surrounding roadways. Current development standards would require full curb, gutter, sidewalk and streetlight improvements to be made along Catherine as well as the highway in front of the restaurant. But the developer was requesting waivers to these requirements. Putting full improvements on Catherine Ave.would be out of character for the small residential street that it is, the developer claimed. What’s more, improvements on the Boulevard would be difficult because of the same issues that made the access point impracticable. MVTAB members were firm, however, on requiring full offsites on both streets. Even though the sidewalks wouldn’t connect to any other existing sidewalks, board members felt that they must be required of commercial developers. “At what point do we start requiring it if not now?” asked Metz. “We have had no other commercial projects in that area. The last ones were the power and water district buildings and they were required to do the offsites. There’s our precedent.” MVTAB member Guy Doty agreed. But he recalled that when the Moapa Valley Water District had built a new building on its property, the offsites had been required. But, he said, actual construction was allowed to be delayed until after the sewer line was installed in that area. “I certainly don’t want to waive the requirements in this case,” Doty said. “But it certainly makes sense to delay them until after the sewer is put in there.” Logandale resident, Tom Collins, expressed a concern that the commercial zoning in that area might be inappropriate. Collins said that strip commercial zoning has not worked in the Las Vegas valley and has usually resulted in depressed areas with abandoned commercial buildings. He pointed out that the old Land Use Guides for the Moapa Valley had set aside a strip of commercial all up and down the state highway through the valley. “That is what they used to do in the 1960s and -70s,” Collins said. “But we have learned from our mistakes.” The 2007 Land Use Guide had done away with most of that spot commercial zoning, concentrating most of the commercial in the central Overton and Logandale business districts. “I like Mexican food and I’d love to have them here in the valley,” Collins concluded. “But they could probably build in town in the business district for less than what the improvements would cost them out there.” But County Planner, Al Laird, explained that the Catherine Ave. property had been hard zoned as commercial for many years. “That is different than talking about a Land Use Guide designation,” he said. “A change to the Land Use Guide doesn’t change the zoning. That parcel is zoned C-1 which allows for the restaurant.” MVTAB member, Rik Eide agreed. “The Land Use Guide is just that: a guide,” he said. “This property has been zoned commercial since 1976. With hard zoning in place, there really is no zoning issue here.” MVTAB member Gene Houston made a motion to approve the design review of the restaurant and to allow access to the property from Catherine Ave. He also moved to require that full off-site improvements be made to both Catherine and Moapa Valley Blvd. His motion allowed the offsites for the state highway to be delayed until after the sewer has been constructed through the area and it required the developer to put up a bond for those construction costs in advance. Houston’s motion carried with a unanimous vote.