Having Begun the Ruin of Gold Hill, CMI Turns its Attention to Silver City

On August 12, 2013, Comstock Mining Inc. submitted an application for a Master Plan and zoning change to the Lyon County Planning Department. They also provided a copy of these applications to the Silver City Advisory Board. The master plan and zoning changes requested at the Dayton Consolidated would allow pit mining within Silver City town limits. Some homes are as close as 250 feet from the Dayton Consolidated mine site.

The Silver City Advisory Board put the topic of CMI master plan and zoning change applications on the agenda for the meeting of September 3rd.

As a point of clarification, the purpose of a master plan is to collaboratively design a blueprint for future community and county growth, based on input from the county planners and the residents of the communities in Lyon County. Planning in this way spells out the kind of zoning the community wants and the zoning determines what kinds of land use will be allowed, for example, residential, commercial, industrial, etc.

The Dayton Con. is currently zoned residential and has been residential since 1971 when the first master plan was created. It was reaffirmed as residential by the Lyon County Commissioners in 1986 when Nevex Gold wanted to mine in the very same location and was reaffirmed again in 2010 when the master plan was updated. Silver City residents have fully participated in the updating of the master plan.

On the three days before the meeting, August 31st, September 1st and 2nd, residents of Silver City conducted a walk-about, visiting every house in town, explaining the issues and offering a petition to sign objecting to any change to the Master Plan or zoning. The petition, with 100 signatures, was presented to the Town Board, asking them to present the petition to the Lyon County Commissioners, thus notifying the Commissioners of the desires of the residents of Silver City. Silver City has approximately 161 residents so when you subtract children, 100 citizens saying no to mining at the Dayton Con. is a considerable majority.

In addition to the request for the Master Plan and zoning change, CMI also requested that a number of town lots at the Dayton Con, be consolidated into one 16-acre parcel. This too is in preparation for mining and was scheduled before the Lyon County Planning Commission on September 10th. About 18 residents from Silver City attended this meeting in Yerington. CMI asked the Planning Commissioners to continue this hearing until October or November as they had learned that there were some errors in their application for the consolidation of acreage that needed to be corrected.

The Planning Commission voted to continue this hearing for up to 90 days. CMI may reschedule this hearing when they have corrected their application for the consolidation of acreage. The rescheduled hearing may be as soon as October 8th. Cashion Callaway requested that any and all hearings regarding mining within the township of Silver City be held in Silver City, not in Yerington so that the residents of Silver City can attend and fully participate.

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