New homes proposed for the Silver Oak development brought up an old issue for the Carson City Board of Supervisors Thursday.
At the board meeting, Silver Oak Development, L.P. requested a change to its planned unit development to add 31 houses on a 7.99 acre parcel surrounding the popular John Mankins Park off Oak Ridge Drive.
As one condition of approval, city staff required the developer to add to the design a three-way stop at Oak Ridge and the unnamed road leading into the planned addition.
The stop sign was requested to facilitate access to the new homes, but a side benefit will likely be to reduce speeding on Oak Ridge where 900 cars travel daily, many drivers using it as a shortcut between Winnie Lane and College Parkway and going faster than the 25-mile an hour speed limit.
During public comment, several Oak Ridge homeowners raised concerns about child safety and a lack of parking around the busy park and to suggest the development needs a second exit road.
“If you add 70 more cars from that development, it will create a mess if there is not another way in or out,” said Jerry Cinani, a candidate for mayor, who said he lives across from the park. “If you don’t put another outlet in there the congestion is going to be incredible.”
Several brought up West Nye Lane, which dead ends into the land where the new homes are proposed to be built.
“I ask that the map be amended to open up Nye Lane,” said John Greenhut, another Oak Ridge homeowner.
When the 25 year-old Silver Oak PUD was first proposed, nearby homeowners organized to oppose turning West Nye into an access road for the development and the developers agreed not to do it.
Donna DePauw, who helped organize that early effort, spoke at the supervisors meeting, too.
“I had close to 500 names on a petition. Our whole neighborhood did not want the street going through to the development, it’s not just a few people on Nye Lane,” she said. “We were told West Nye Lane is a dead issue, that it would never be opened, never be part of Silver Oak and that’s the way we want to keep it.”
Options were discussed, including one asked about by Supervisor Jim Shirk to add a gate at West Nye Lane so the road into Silver Oak could only be accessed by homeowners with a card to open it.
“I don’t want to do that, I want city streets, not private streets, which require (homeowner association) dues which is very disincentivizing to home buyers,” said Mark Turner, representing the developer.
Turner also said he thought opening up West Nye would create its own set of traffic problems as people used it as a shortcut as well.
Finding room for additional parking around the park also was discussed, including converting a small strip of undeveloped land next to the park which is currently too narrow for a road and parking spaces.
“The issues we’ve heard about today are existing problems,” and not being created by the proposed development, said Supervisor Brad Bonkowski.
Mayor Bob Crowell agreed.
“It seems we have an existing problem with the park and I’m not sure we’re going to solve that today,” said Crowell. “The residents make a good point. There is an issue with respect to safety and we need to resolve it.”
Oak Ridge has one speed sign that tells drivers how fast they’re driving as a deterrent and Crowell said it’s time to put one on the opposite side of the road as well.
The board unanimously approved the developer’s request and added the city would fund another speed sign for Oak Ridge and look at additional parking for the park.
In other actions, the supervisors accepted in advance a $2.57 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to reconstruct the Carson City Airport’s north ramp apron; accepted a recommendation from the Open Space Advisory Committee to submit an application for a grant from the Bureau of Land Management, Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act Program for trail and trailhead improvements; and heard the first reading of a 1 percent hike in the lodging tax to fund efforts to develop cultural tourism.