RENO – A citizen initiative designed to limit sprawl around Reno appears headed for the November ballot.

 

Supporters on Friday turned in petitions with more than 28,000 signatures — about 10,000 more than the 18,093 signatures required to qualify the measure for the ballot.

If approved, the initiative would require growth in Washoe County to be based on sustainable water resources within the county and would ban the importation of water from outside the county.

Officials said it would be the first binding question on growth limits to appear on a county ballot.

“We have no illusions that this fight is just beginning,” petition leader Bob Fulkerson said. “The monied interests and developers have us in their sights.”

Pamela Galloway of Voices for a Sustainable Washoe County said the petitions received broad support from Republicans and Democrats alike.

She said the initiative would require regional planners to plan for 200,000 more people for a total population of 600,000.

A new regional water facilities plan would provide for up to 1.2 million people.

Mike Dillon, acting director of the Builders Association of Northern Nevada, said the measure is not needed. Developers must turn over water rights to utilities in order to build, he said.

“A petition like this is a plan to stop growth, positive economic growth in times that are very difficult for people to pay their gas bill,” Dillon told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Dillon said the Reno area has not experienced runaway growth.

“Every year over any time in northern Nevada, we have not had over 3 percent growth,” he said. “Rampant growth is a misnomer for this community.”

Galloway said actual growth would not be limited until a decade or two.

“It took us 150 years to get to 400,000 people,” she said. “We still have (time) to go before we hit 600,000.”

The petition drive was launched after county commissioners in March refused to put a sustainable water planning advisory question on the ballot.