SPARKS –– At the Spanish Springs Citizens Advisory Board meeting Tuesday night, the board voted to approve a proposed commercial and industrial development on Calle De La Plata, but only after being asked if the cap on commercial land development was still needed in the community’s area plan.

Eric Young, a planner with Washoe County’s Department of Community Development, approached the board with two questions: What is Spanish Springs’ identity and does the community’s area plan properly address that identity?

“This is more to hear from you than it is to hear from me,” Young said. “We have been directed by the planning commission to amend your area plan.”

Young said an issue the Washoe County Planning Commission regularly encounters when addressing development in Spanish Springs is the commercial land use cap. When the plan was originally developed in 2002, the cap was set at 7.5 percent. The Village at the Peak project would stretch that cap to 9.86 percent.

“The planning commission started to be a little alarmed and thought, ‘What is the point of a cap if we’re not going to enforce it?’ ” Young said.

The land use cap on commercial projects has been a frequent issue at CAB meetings when projects for Spanish Springs are presented with a request from a developer to change land from general rural use or low-density suburban to commercial or industrial use.

In addition to the commercial land use cap, Young held up and read from a copy of the Spanish Springs Comprehensive Area Plan, which he said hadn’t been updated since 2002. He read the character statement and said it left room for interpretation, especially in regard to the community’s “housing cap.”

The Spanish Springs character statement caps housing developments at building three or fewer units per acre. Young said this is the second issue the planning commission faces with diverse development in Spanish Springs. He added that the average housing development, without including large acre parcels in Spanish Springs, has two units per acre.

“This was the very first character statement written in Washoe County,” Young said. “If you want to go above three units per acre, you need to amend the character statement.”

Young said for apartments or more high-density housing developments to be built in Spanish Springs, an amendment to the character statement would be necessary. The statement doesn’t make amendment easy; it states that community “vision workshops” must be held first.

“A vision workshop is not something we (the county) do regularly,” Young said. “We don’t even know what that means. Instead of making it up, we thought we’d ask what it means to you.”

Young admitted he wrote the character statement in 2002 with input from CAB members and residents but said the Spanish Springs community is now faced with amending the statement because the planning commission is no longer referring to it when looking at what is best for the community.

“The planning commission decided it didn’t like the cap,” Young said with honesty. “The planning commission decided it didn’t want to discuss the cap each time but it decided to look at other things like market and need.”

Young said some of those needs could be because of booming suburban growth and could include markets, community centers and businesses that create jobs.

“The planning commission decided that community development needed to go talk with Spanish Springs,” Young said. “Until then, they’re going to take guidance from the Land Use and Transportation Plan, which is newer.”

When the board and residents attending the meeting expressed displeasure at the idea that the Spanish Springs Comprehensive Area Plan was not being used to help guide development in their community, Young asked one question.

“What makes Spanish Springs?” Young asked as he tried to define what the charater statement was. “That is the character statement.”

Young said if the board decided after review that the character statement adequately identifies the community, then no amendment would be required, but the county believes an update is needed.

“We’ve come to call it the commercial cap, it’s just what we do, but the proper term is non-residential,” Young said. “When the Spanish Springs Area Plan was written, we had to find a balance between commercial and residential.

“The city of Sparks put pressure on the county to put jobs out here,” Young said, adding that the pressure caused the cap to be set at 7.5 percent. “We still have an ongoing goal of creating more employment here. There is still a strong imbalance between residential and commercial.”

Spanish Springs resident Dan Herman agreed that the cap has become obsolete.

“I think we ought to keep the three units per acre housing,” Herman said to the board. “I helped write the plan and it was aimed to keep it a rural neighborhood.

“The commercial cap doesn’t work,” Herman added. “I would encourage you to get rid of that. It’s just not working. Other than that, let’s keep it a rural neighborhood.”

Young said Washoe County spent more than $11,000 a few years ago for a consultant to do an identity study in Spanish Springs. Its purpose was to define and encapsulate the character of the Spanish Springs community. Young said the consultant reported that residents wanted a town center, or as the consultant worded it, “someplace to put its Christmas tree.” Young asked if that place existed currently and, if so, where it is.

“The planning commission is looking for a reaffirmation of what you want,” Young said.

Board chairperson Steve Grosz suggested the CAB take its time to reread the character statement and decide where to go from there. He also suggested that if an amendment is needed that the CAB should create a sub-committee that could include Spanish Springs homeowner’s association presidents and area residents for input.

The board agreed to revisit the topic at its Jan. 13 meeting, at which Young said they can come up with a way to address vision workshops and how to amend the character statement if the community decides it is needed.