Progress continues at S. Carson subdivision

A Schulz Ranch subdivision map to site roads, sewer/water lines and open space is well under way but remains on the drawing board, spokesmen for Carson City and the developer said this week.

The map for the first phase plans to accommodate 100 single-family homes at the city’s south edge, which will be in the vicinity of the old Champion Motor Speedway near Bigelow and Race Track roads, are expected in little more than three months. Mark Rotter, an engineer with Manhard Consulting’s Reno and Carson City offices, and Lee Plemel, the city’s community development director, talked of progress on such plans.

“We have plans in for review,” said Rotter. “Our goal is to have a map recorded in August.” He said that includes not only infrastructure needed to begin housing development, perhaps sometime next year, but also landscape and park review with Plemel’s Community Development/Planning unit and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Rotter, who heads both the Reno office and the one in Carson City at 3476 Executive Pointe Way, said the landscape-review process has been going quite well. Plemel also sounded upbeat but said review continues.

“We have a tentative map that shows where the open space and parks are,” said Plemel, indicating it wasn’t yet detailed or finished. He said a Landscape Maintenance District will be formed so the development can provide the city with aid in taking care of the open space and park land involved.

Plemel also said the proposal is to extend and pave Topsy Lane east from the U.S. Highway 395 intersection toward Bigelow and Race Track roads, which are south of Snyder Avenue and west of the Northern Nevada Correctional Center lands. The old race track used to be near Bigelow at 1210 Race Track Road,

Carson City’s Board of Supervisors less than a month ago cleared the way for this upcoming step in the planning process, voting without dissent to remove any hurdle and spur the mapping process. The proposal will eventually call for developing the 424-unit subdivision in four phases. It is the first major subdivision to show signs of life since the recession.

The agreement was conceived and approved by the city in 2005. It was given an extension by city government in 2011. The original proposal was for 521 houses, but the action on April 3 by the city’s governing board cut the overall number to 424 and set the phased-in approach in motion.

O.K. Rihl, development manager for Crown West Land Group in Tucson, Airz., referred questions on the project to Rotter when contacted this week. But he also said the plan was to get the government permitting and infrastructure process in place so a decision can come next year by putting a finger in the wind and assessing the economics regarding just when to proceed.