Lyon County approves settlement agreement with Traditions developer

The Lyon County Commission approved the settlement agreement to resolve the lawsuit filed by Reno developer Stan Lucas in regards to the Traditions Village Subdivision in Dayton during its April 6 meeting. The decision waived approximately $201,000 in depreciation payment from Lucas, paying him $25,000 to resolve all claims and for which it would receive $75,000 to offset the waiver.

Lyon County District Attorney Steve Rye was unavailable for the item during the April 6 meeting, but attorney Charlie Burcham, a specialist in civil litigation in Thorndal Armstrong’s Reno office, spoke in his place.

Burcham explained the original votes from April 2021 for Lucas’ “Cottage at Traditions” project that led to two separate legal proceedings filed by Lucas’ team.

“There was considerable confusion about the way it was presented by the Lucas folks and also the zone change caused a lot of confusion before it was going from more dense to less dense,” Burcham said through Zoom.

The zone change was approved after a series of questions and clarifications on lot sizes, with commissioners generally favoring single-family homes over apartments on 8,000-square-foot lots, for which former senior planner Rob Pyzel at the time had said an application could be requested for multi-family apartments over single-family residential units according to the county’s Title 15. After further discussion, commissioners passed the zoning change 4-1 with former Commissioner Vida Keller opposed.

Former Commissioner Ken Gray moved to deny the tentative map based on lack of adequate access and availability to public services, the project not conforming with the county’s Comprehensive Master Plan and concerns about its adverse impacts to existing public streets. The motion on the denial passed 4-1 with Commissioner Rob Jacobson opposing.

Not long after, Lucas filed a petition for judicial review in the Third Judicial District on the tentative map denial and filed a civil complaint, and Burcham said he had sent out extensive discovery to him and his subcontractors. Burcham said he brought in retired Judge David Gamble to mediate the case and they “hammered out an agreement” with the Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool, Lyon County’s insurer, to achieve a global resolution of $100,000 on the case and releasing current Commissioners Wes Henderson, Robert Jacobsen, Dave Hockaday, Gray and Keller from and against liabilities, demands or causes of action.

“It was related to a certain utility infrastructure that had been put in 15 years ago by the prior owner, and that project was halted due to the Great Recession,” Burcham said. “The question was whether or not (Lucas’ team) would get credit for use of the depreciation or further depreciated lifespan for use of that infrastructure, and an agreement was reached among the groups.”

Burcham said Rye and he co-drafted the agreement that states what happened between the county and Lucas’ team.

“It’s a resolution of a lawsuit,” Burcham reported to the commission Thursday. “As legal counsel, it’s a very good resolution to an overall legal dispute that has been going on for two years and release everybody so that the Paul of everything hanging over everybody’s heads is gone.”