No work has yet been done on a manufactured home project approved near the Muller Parkway roundabout south of Gardnerville that property owners are seeking to expand.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
Gardnerville staff is recommending denial of a master plan and zoning map amendment for a 252-manufactured home park on 43.8 acres near the Muller Lane Parkway roundabout.
Property owner Butch Peri is seeking to change both the master plan and zoning on the parcel from agricultural to multi-family residential with an overlay that will allow manufactured homes.
The Gardnerville Town Board meets 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the town offices, 1407 Main St.
The project would be located next to the already approved Stoneridge Villas, creating a combined 411-unit park.
The original project was approved in summer 2019 by Douglas County, with construction estimated to begin later this year, according to the developer.
According to a plan presented to the Gardnerville Town Board, the project follows Muller Lane Parkway from the Virginia Canal all the way south to where Pine Nut Road crosses the Allerman Canal. There is a single home on the property and a strip of agricultural easement that follows the Allerman.
No one has irrigated the property for years since the water rights were sold off.
Developers say the increase in housing costs in Douglas County since the master plan was adopted in 2020 is the change in circumstance required to be demonstrated for a masterplan amendment.
In his report on the project, Town Manager Erik Nilssen pointed out that the approvals would not obligate the owner to build the project.
The town board is the first step to obtain the changes, that will have to go before planning and county commissioners.
Since both the town board and planning commission are advisory, denial by either or both panels isn’t binding on the county.
While nothing has been built, yet, there are approvals south of Gardnerville that include receiving area on the northern portion of the Corley Ranch and the 1,020-unit Virginia Ranch project further north.
As part of the master plan update, Peri sought single family housing on the property, but county commissioners turned him down.
Nilssen said that the property is included in the Plan for Prosperity for future development after the town has built out 85 percent.
He said the town presently has 1,857 units with at least another 1,501 units that have yet to be built, or 56 percent.
“These two subject parcels have never been considered for land use more intense than one dwelling per 19 acres,” Nilssen wrote in his report. “The most recent master plan update is the first document that suggests intensification of this land would be appropriate at some point in the future when the town has reached 85-percent build out.”
Nilssen said that at a meeting in November he suggested developers build the approved project before seeking the master plan change.
“If the units rapidly sold out it would make the argument stronger that additional multi-family housing is needed.”
No work has been done on the first phase of the project, yet.
