Andersen Ranch developer to look at traffic for Carson City project

More than a 100 people showed up to a meeting hosted by the developer of a new housing project proposed on a portion of Andersen Ranch.

Michael Railey, planning manager, Christy Corp., held the meeting Thursday evening at the Carson Nugget Casino Hotel after some people were turned away from an earlier meeting organized by Maxine Nietz, a neighboring homeowner, because the conference room inside the Carson City Library quickly filled to capacity.

Railey gave a brief introduction of the Andersen Ranch Estates project, which features 203 single-family houses on lots ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 square feet on the part of the ranch located between Ormsby Boulevard and Mountain Street.

The Planning Commission will consider the project’s tentative map at its Dec. 17 meeting. The meeting starts at 3 p.m. but the Andersen project won’t be heard before 5:30 p.m.

After the introduction, Railey fielded dozens of questions from the audience.

The questions echoed concerns brought up at the earlier meeting: traffic, ingress and egress, and project density.

In terms of density, the project is building what the zoning allows, said Railey. Zoning is a mix 6,000 and 12,000 single-family and municipal code allows some reduction in lot sizes to provide open space instead. The number of allowed lots, 203, is the same.

Loren Chilson, principal, Headway Transportation, who conducted a traffic study for the project, was also on hand and promised to do an additional traffic count at Washington Street and Richmond Avenue before the Planning Commission meeting after several people said they were worried about plans to cut through Richmond, which now dead ends at the property.

At the earlier meeting at the library, Railey said the Richmond connection was required by the city after it completed a major project review of the project.

Also required by the city, said Railey, are bathrooms at the Mountain Street trailhead, which will be connected to a walking path around the property as part of the project.

“We prefer not putting in restrooms and I would encourage you to bring it up,” said Railey.

Railey said the developer is in talks with several home builders to construct the entire project, which would likely be built in six phases, moving from Mountain Street to Ormbsy Boulevard.

He also committed to not building any Spanish or Mediterranean style houses in order to blend in with the neighborhood.

The Andersen Ranch is the site of a controversial project known as Vintage at Kings Canyon, which was approved in 2016. The project was never built and the planned unit development approved for it never went into effect.