Letter to Douglas County

June 24, 2008
Harmon Zuckerman, Principal Planner
DOUGLAS COUNTY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
P.O. Box 218
Minden, NV 89423

Re: Park Ranch Specific Plan

Dear Harmon:

Attached is the complete specific plan document that includes the requisite application, mapping, and supporting documents as well as our analysis of the required findings.

As you know, Park Cattle Company is one of the oldest and largest land owners in Douglas County. Its property holdings include several of the casino properties at Lake Tahoe and the Edgewood Golf Course that together generate millions of dollars annually for Douglas County’s economy in the form of property taxes, personal property taxes, transient occupancy taxes and sales taxes, all for the benefit of Douglas County and its residents.

This significant and on-going revenue stream has for decades provided one of the largest single sources of funds to Douglas County, financially supporting public services such as schools, airport operations, library services, parks and recreation, senior services, law enforcement and fire district operations, senior center services. In addition to these revenues, Park Cattle Company has provided millions of dollars of community support through fundraisers and direct donations to local non-profit organizations, local service clubs and youth associations. The Company is also one of the major partners responsible for organizing and hosting 18 consecutive years of the NBC televised Celebrity Golf Championship. This event alone has brought worldwide recognition and notoriety to Douglas County’s portion of Lake Tahoe, hundreds of thousands of visitors and millions of tourism dollars to Douglas County. As a long time property and business owner, the Company and each of the Park Family members are very proud of their effective partnership with numerous community organizations and to have been significant contributors to the county’s tax revenue streams thereby helping Douglas County maintain its position as one of the lowest taxed county’s in the state of Nevada.

In preparing this Specific Plan the Family’s consultants have thoroughly reviewed and considered the County’s historic land use plans as well as its current development codes and ordinances. As recently as 1980, owners of agricultural lands in Carson Valley, including Park Cattle’s predecessors-in-interest, enjoyed a land use designation of one house per one acre of land. Under that land use designation, the portions of Park Cattle Company property holdings would have allowed approximately 4,500 residential units. Since 1980, there have been a couple of community-wide master plan updates and zoning map amendments that result in the current land use districts allowing just 236 residential units on individual 19-acre parcels. If the included properties are developed under the current zoning designation of one house per 19 acres, which properties would have 236 individual wells and septic systems, with some of those units in areas that would otherwise be readily served by community water and sewer services. Such a development pattern, even with the best irrigation plan, will result in a net loss of irrigable acreage on Park lands and impede the efficient delivery of water to downstream users.

Using the allowed 19-acre development approach, the County and its residents would see almost no public benefits. There would be no access to public lands including the Carson River, a significant loss of treasured view sheds from both Highways 395 and State Route 88, attain no new school sites, no regional parks, no new jobs, no economic diversification and no workforce housing opportunities. This sort of plan would simply be a continuation of high end 19 acre residential development. Finally, the long sought after town by-pass for Minden and Gardnerville, now know as Muller Parkway, would only be constructed at the expense of the County’s residents, leaving the business core areas of both Minden and Gardnerville to the same problems that have plagued downtown Carson City for the past 25 years. Clearly this land use alternative of one house per 19 acres has significant undesirable results for the County and the two Towns and is not consistent with the historic long-term approach to the community that has epitomized the Park Family.

In addition, both the Town of Minden and Gardnerville Town Water Company have been granted water rights from the State Engineer to accommodate reasonable growth. If the included properties are under developed at a density of one residence per 19-acres, the water rights granted to each of those entities may be in jeopardy of forfeiture to the extent of non-use or, more likely, as an asset of the people of the State of Nevada, these water rights will be transferred for use by others outside of Douglas County. The attached Specific Plan, which relies on water service from the Town of Minden, will serve to prevent the potential loss of these water rights.

A second land use option that is also currently available to Park Cattle provides bonuses for “clustering” of residential units on small lots. Utilizing this approach requires that appurtenant water rights be permanently tied to the land, forced connection of all new units to municipal sewer and water systems, requires payment of millions of dollars of utility connection fees, but allows for only 600 clustered residential units on the included 4,500 acres. Under this alternative, although 70% of the lands would remain undeveloped, these undeveloped areas would be privately owned, not available for public access or use but continue to allow other agricultural land uses provided in the current code. This option would have very significant infrastructure, municipal water and sewer system costs and, like the 19-acre land use option, offer no public benefits to the residents and taxpayers of Douglas County.

There remains another land use option available to Douglas County and its residents. As a longstanding and responsible member of this community Park Cattle Company submits a third land use option that involves regional and county-wide benefits only available from Park Cattle as the owner of these unique and strategically located land holdings. This option can be known as the Park Ranch. In fact, Douglas County’s adopted Master Plan identifies some of these land areas as having a high priority for acquisition, worthy of permanent preservation and protection in their natural state. However, no public funds are available for acquiring these large open space lands and the appurtenant water rights and therefore, the ability to realize these objectives requires a public-private partnership. Park Cattle Company’s lands are ideally situated to provide otherwise unavailable regional flood and drainage control benefits to the County and both Towns. Flood control improvements on the Park Cattle land, as proposed within the attached Specific Plan, will directly benefit hundreds of existing homes in the Towns of Gardnerville and Minden. As such, the ability to derive these flood control benefits alone warrants serious consideration of the proposed Specific Plan that contemplates only the partial development of Park Cattle Company’s lands. There are numerous other benefits beyond flood and drainage system improvements that are part of the proposed Specific Plan.

Park Cattle’s land holdings also include some 3,200 acres, located immediately west of State Route 88 and Highway 395, from near Mottsville on the south to Genoa Lane on the north and along both sides of the East Fork of the Carson River. The Park Ranch plan maintains these areas, largely as open spaces, enhances the pristine sloughs and restores sensitive wetland areas. Additionally, the attached Specific Plan proposes to allow public access to several miles of the Carson River for recreational activities, hundreds of acres of land available for equestrian and walking trails, totaling over 4 square miles of permanently preserved and protected open space.

Additionally, the Park Ranch Specific Plan presents a great opportunity to generate significant additional tourism revenue with the addition of lodging and tourism facilities at an enlarged Dangberg Home Ranch State Park. These amenities will compliment, respect and preserve the County’s Open Space Plan, which calls for unfettered, unobstructed and protected view sheds from the highways west to the Sierra Mountain range. Under this Specific Plan proposal, the goals and objectives of the Open Space Plan, the Trails Plan and the River Restoration Plan of the Carson River Coalition all become a near term reality, all at little or no cost to the county or its taxpayers.

Park Cattle’s eastern parcel consists of some 1370 acres, on both the north and south sides of Buckeye Road, between the Minden Elementary school and Western Nevada College. The proposed Specific Plan provides for approximately 800 acres of Receiving Area for development of balanced residential, commercial, industrial, retail and public facilities uses, with the remaining 570 acres of these lands reserved for additional open space, linear and regional parks, drainage and flood control improvements.

The public facilities contemplated by the Park Ranch Specific Plan are sufficient to serve the projects proposed uses and provides significant regional public benefits beyond the demands of the project including infrastructure for flood control, regional roads and water supply. In addition, dedication of lands for schools, fire and paramedic district, and a sheriff’s substation are all offered with the development of this Specific Plan. This is a key element of the Park Ranch plan because the needed regional public infrastructure improvements can not currently be funded by existing county taxpayers. This project will facilitate the near term completion of Muller Parkway, while offering new residents and neighbors local shopping and workforce opportunities close to home, in this planned walk-able community of Park Ranch.

Park Cattle Company is proud of Douglas County and proud to have been an integral and active part of this community for many decades. The vision captured in this unique and comprehensive land plan is a legacy that the Park Family wishes to leave Douglas County. It is a legacy of conservation, good and prudent planning, of protecting significant environmental and recreational values while providing substantial, long-term regional infrastructure improvements, coupled with a variety of land uses to sustain this community for many generations. Park Ranch presents an orderly, planned, balanced and controlled approach to development in a manner that is consistent with the goals, policies and concepts of the adopted master plan.

Thank you, again, for your cooperation and assistance as we have worked through the various aspects of this planning effort. We look forward to working closely together through you and your staff’s review as well as the public hearings when this important land use plan is considered. I trust you will contact me directly with any questions or concerns that may arise during your review. I can be reached at 782-2588.

Sincerely,

PARK CATTLE COMPANY, INC.

Brad Nelson, CEO