Staffers back Burning Man's Nevada staging area with conditions

RENO -- County planners are recommending approval of Burning Man organizers' plans for a permanent staging area for the counterculture festival in the Nevada desert -- but not without a long list of conditions.

Planning staffers in Washoe County have imposed 95 requirements that organizers must meet to operate the staging area called Black Rock Station on 200 acres they own about 120 miles north of Reno.

"It is the county's position that the approval of the permits with the conditions listed will help to greatly mitigate the impacts on the surrounding area," assistant planner Roger Pelham said.

A crowd of more than 100 was on hand at a public hearing Thursday night as the county planning commission began considering the requests for four required special use permits.

Burning Man organizers urged the panel to postpone any decision until after its April 21 meeting.

"The time line to meet the conditions is a hardship," Burning Man spokesman Will Roger told the commission.

"We're asking you to allow us to phase it in over three to five years. We're looking at more than $1 million in costs to meet the conditions and we need to spread the costs out," he said.

Organizers are seeking approval to store vehicles and supplies at the Hualapai Valley site year-round. They also want permission for 120 volunteers to stay there during the weeks before and after the festival.

For the past five years, the staging area was on an adjacent 80-acre leased site west of the Black Rock Desert playa where Burning Man takes place the week leading up to Labor Day.

About 50 nearby residents oppose the organizers' request, branding the staging area as a junkyard and eyesore.

"It's a mass of abandoned vehicles and trailers that you can see from eight miles away. It sticks out like a sore thumb," said Donna Potter, a member of the Gerlach-Empire Citizens Advisory Board.

"It disrupts the view of what we expect out there. We don't want a bunch of junk in our backyard," she said.

Potter said she does not oppose the festival itself.

Billed as a celebration of art and radical self-expression, the event drew more than 29,000 people from 40 states and 20 countries last year. Nudity and drug use are not uncommon.

In an e-mail message sent last week, festival organizers urged about 2,000 regulars from Nevada to show support by either attending the meeting or writing a letter.

Failure to win the permits could doom the event, organizers warned.

"Our event brings millions of dollars into Nevada annually," they wrote. "We feel our impact is positive and that we are good neighbors and good stewards of the land.

If approved, the permits will allow a facility for making festival art, a storage facility for a vehicle fleet, a salvage yard for used building and art supplies, and a campground for volunteers and staff.

Among the conditions recommended by county staffers, organizers would have to build an eight-foot-tall fence around salvage areas and limit campground use to 60 days before the festival and 45 days after.

Organizers also would have to prove they own water rights for the operation. Either side can appeal the planning commission's decision to the Washoe County Commission.