We don't have to bulldoze the desert to grow
Las Vegas does not have to keep growing out into the desert. We can grow up, in the urban core we already have.
Right now the City keeps pushing development farther out, destroying wildlife habitat and running new roads, water lines and sewers into open desert. It's more than the water. It's the animals that live out there and the plants that grow there, bulldozed for subdivisions.
Meanwhile Downtown has more than 700 dirt and surface lots, and about 86% of its form-based zoning land is held to seven stories or less. We are giving up the desert because we won't let Downtown build seven stories or higher. The roads, pipes and sewers are already Downtown. Let's use them.
700+dirt and surface lots sitting empty Downtown
70,000new Downtown residents if half of those lots got high-rises
14,000+affordable homes, up to almost 20,000, if the City sets the height-for-affordability trade right
The 70,000 and 14,000-plus figures are our estimates for what Downtown could hold, not City numbers.
1. Save the Desert
Every home built Downtown is a home that doesn't need a new patch of desert graded for it.
- Compact growth uses less of the valley's land for the same number of people, so more desert stays undisturbed and fewer new roads, pipes and pumping stations get built
- Southern Nevada recycles about 99% of the water used indoors; outdoor irrigation mostly evaporates and is gone. A tower shares one footprint, one landscape and one pool instead of a private yard for every household
- Keeping Downtown low doesn't stop growth. It just pushes it out to the edge of the valley
2. Trade Height for Affordable Homes
Our proposal gives builders a clear bargain: the more height they want, the more they give back.
| Height | What the builder gives back |
|---|
| 20–30 stories | Allowed by right on a qualifying dirt lot or surface parking lot, with no bonus payment |
| Up to about 40 | One major public benefit: on-site affordable housing, a public plaza, park or Low Line connection, or below-market space for local businesses |
| Up to about 60, or uncapped | Two major benefits on selected core sites, and one of them must be affordable housing |
- The proposal starts by testing an affordable share of 10-15% of a building's homes, checked by an independent feasibility study; the City sets the final share, and the higher it goes, the more affordable homes Downtown gets.
- Height makes the math work. On the same half-acre lot bought for $10 million, seven stories carries about $86,800 of land cost per home; forty stories brings that down to about $15,200
3. Bring the Foot Traffic Downtown Businesses Need
Visitors and First Friday help, but businesses need neighbors who walk in every day.
- Restaurant-sized space in the Arts District is listed at $45 a square foot a year, about $15,000 to $19,000 a month in base rent before any other costs
- A brewery space in the Arts District is renting for about $15,000 a month. It needs far more residents within walking distance to survive
- Portland's Pearl District paired density and height with a streetcar, parks and affordable housing, and grew from about 1,300 residents in 2000 to 11,019 in 2020
4. Build on the Empty Land, Not Over the Neighborhood
- Only lots that were dirt, vacant land or surface parking when the ordinance passes qualify
- No occupied home or business may be torn down, and no active business displaced, to make room for a tower
- John S. Park, Beverly Green and the historic residential parts of the Historic Westside stay protected, with stepped-down heights at their edges
- Builders must line up financing within 12 months of approval and start real construction within 24 months, or they lose the height and the incentives
- The FAA still reviews every tall building for its exact site and height
5. What We're Asking the City to Do
- Direct staff and the City Attorney to draft a mapped Downtown overlay and incentive ordinance within 120 days
- Open applications for 18 months
- Require approved projects to start construction within 24 months of approval
Read the story: Why The Vision 2045 Plan Is Stifling Downtown Development