Cross_cutting

0:22 Welcome to the August 13th hearing of the Clark County Land Use Hearings Examiner. My name is Daniel Cairns and I'll be presiding over tonight's hearing. We have on the agenda tonight a single item. It's Felida Terrace, site plan and zone change. That's PSR 2026-00021. Let me begin with an introduction to me and explanation as to how the process is going to unfold tonight. First of all, I and one other person, we serve by appointment from the Board of County Counselors to review and decide development proposals in unincorporated Clark County. It's our job to review the record, review the application, review all of the public comments, the staff report and other documents that anybody submits into this each matter. And then we review the code and determine what the code requires.

1:21 Then we convene a hearing such as this to take public testimony. But ultimately our job is to decide whether each of these proposals meets or doesn't meet the applicable approval criteria. And those are the standards that control each of these. Those are the standards that were in the code, the development code at the time each of these was submitted. So that submission freezes in time, the standards that will control its passage and ultimately ultimate decision through the county's process. In making these decisions, I am required to be objective and free of conflicts of interest. And I believe that I am with regard to this one tonight. I don't know the applicant or the property owner. I have no familial or personal or business relations with anyone associated with the applicant. I don't know any of the opponents who have weighed in so far.

2:21 What I know about this case is what I've gleaned from the record. And I've had my record. I've had access to it for about two weeks. And the record is a changing creature up until just an hour ago, things have changed somewhat. So that's what I know about this case. I believe I am free of any conflicts of interest or bias. And if anyone wishes to question me about any of these disclosures, feel free to do so during the public testimony portion of tonight's hearing. With regard to that hearing, here's how we're gonna go. We'll begin with a staff report, and that's a verbal rendition of the written staff report that was issued prior to tonight's hearing. That's exhibit 59 in the record for those of you who are watching. After the staff report, I will take the applicant's primary presentation. The applicant can assume that I'm generally familiar with the proposal,

3:20 but there are a couple things that I wanna know upfront from the applicant. First of all, the staff report that was issued has findings on each of the criteria and proposed conditions of approval. I wanna know, well, actually, it has alternative conditions of approval because staff is recommending denial. But I wanna know what objections or corrections you would have to the findings and the conditions, assuming you don't already object to the denial part of it. After that, from the applicant, I need to know what's the current proposal before me, and that's one of the things that may be changing. So that's always an important thing to know before the record closes, is what is the plan? So right now we have an alternate, an alternate, I'll call it plan B,

4:17 exhibit 63 that came in yesterday, I think it was. And it's intended, as I read it, to get around in development engineering's recommendation of a denial on the road mod. So those two things, the third thing I need from the applicant is there's likely to be a lot of public testimony in this matter. I would ask the applicant to keep note of all of the issues that the opponents raised. They've already raised a lot. They're summarized in the staff report, by the way. And I want the applicant to take the first stab during rebuttal to responding to some of those, at least some of those opponent issues. And that's because a lot of times the opponent and neighbor testimony comes in the form of, how is this thing gonna function? How is it gonna affect my access and stormwater system? How is that gonna work?

5:17 There are a number of things that public testimony asks of the applicant. And so I'd ask in rebuttal, the applicant take a first stab at responding to those questions. So that's the applicant side. After that, anyone else in favor of the proposal can testify. Then anyone in the middle there with neutral testimony or questions can testify. And then finally, anyone who is opposed. And I think we have, as I mentioned, we have a lot of opponent testimony. We're gonna limit time. The applicant gets a chunk of 20 minutes to do their primary presentation. Anyone who wants to testify, members of the public, pro, neutral or con, is it three minutes a pop, Richard? - Yes, three minutes. - Three minutes a pop. But understand for those of you out there in Zoom land

6:15 who wanna participate in this, the most effective way to do that from my perspective, here's sort of a pro tip, is when I go to sit down at my kitchen table to write this opinion, I'll have like copies of all the opponent testimony there in front of me. So it's a written thing. It's a written summary of your testimony. It's your letters that are most impactful because I'm a terrible note taker. And so if you're gonna spring some new and surprising issues during oral testimony, I'd recommend you also submit your testimony in writing. I tell you it's most impactful and we already have a lot of the written issues in the record. So next I'll roll into how to frame your public testimony, but one of the first things will be don't repeat. So anyhow, so after we get the opponent testimony, I'll go back to take final rebuttal from the applicant.

7:13 The applicant in all of these cases has the last word and that's because they have the burden of proof, the burden of proving that they meet each of the approval criteria, including all the road standards. And in this case, maybe a road modification too, if it's needed. After the applicant's final rebuttal, I'll go back to staff to see if there's any parting comments that staff has based on a public testimony. And then it's my typical habit as soon as the dust settles to close the record. And that means that that'll end everybody's ability to raise new issues or to submit new evidence. You have to know that you are obligated if you want to appeal one of my decisions, you have to participate either orally or in writing before the record closes and you need to raise any issue that you want to preserve for an appeal

8:10 and you need to submit any evidence you want me to consider or that you'd want to rely upon in the subsequent appeal. So all of you be mindful of when the record closes. As I mentioned, we have a request for the record at least to be kept open, maybe for an entire continuance. We'll talk about that before we're done here tonight. But if you want anything more than that in terms of additional time, you need to make that request while the record is still open. Let's see. How to participate tonight