Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Tours change some minds about development

A van Tuesday heads up to land near Red Rock Canyon where Jim Rhodes wants to build a master-planned community. Photo by John Gurzinski.

The van motoring up the rocky slope of Blue Diamond Hill ferried Las Vegas Valley residents who wanted to see for themselves a patch of land near Red Rock Canyon that has been the subject of great debate in recent weeks.

"I just wanted to come up and see the hill," Jim Altemara said Tuesday. "I've been hearing a lot about this, and I'm just curious."

Developer Jim Rhodes' workers have been shuttling eight loads of residents up the mountain every day since Saturday. The tours are part of a public relations blitz to gain support for Rhodes' master-planned community on a peak with a view of Red Rock and the Las Vegas Valley.

As the van cruised past wild burros, cactus-studded desert and carved-up mine property, Dean Walker, director of land development for Rhodes Homes, told tour participants that the neighborhood will not intrude on Red Rock Canyon.

By the time the van reached the top, nearly 2,000 feet above the valley floor, Walker had them convinced.

When asked whether she would buy a home, Mary Walker, no relation to Dean Walker, made her stance clear: "In a heartbeat."

"Some of the people down there (in the valley) were bitching so much I thought they knew what they were talking about," she said. "They don't have a clue."

Opponents of Rhodes' project support a bill by Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, that prohibits local politicians from changing the zoning or increasing the number of homes allowed under existing zoning codes adjacent Red Rock.

Rhodes has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running newspaper and television ads to urge voters to write lawmakers to protest the proposed bill.

His point: An upscale community is far more attractive than scarred desert land.

"This is practically invisible," Dean Walker said at the site. "You have to come up here to see the property and the devastation."

He said ridges and smaller hills would hide any development from visitors to Red Rock's scenic trails.

Dennis Olson's view of the project was changed by the tour. He said he did not realize the massive scale of the mining operation or the amount of pure desert still controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

"I just got a better idea of where the land was. I thought they owned the whole mountain range," Olson said. "If people were really sharp, they'd be more concerned about restricting development on the BLM land. I think it's more of an enhancement to have homes up there than to keep blasting the hell out of it."

When pressed about how the neighborhood might affect star-gazers or meteor shower observers who flee the city to Red Rock for a better view of the stellar shows, Dean Walker said Rhodes will install special "downward directional" lighting.

Along with seeing the site where Rhodes plans to build, Altemara wanted to visit the hill where he once dug up cactuses with permits from the mining company. He never imagined homes would blanket the rugged terrain he once had to negotiate.

Altemara does not oppose Rhodes' plans because he thinks development is inevitable.

"Developers usually get their way," Altemara said. "Tell me one developer that hasn't gotten his way. I haven't seen it."

Dean Walker said he cannot explain why the project has met such strong opposition, because homes already have been built on Mount Charleston, near Lake Mead and to the boundary of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

He thinks a group of protesters in the nearby town of Blue Diamond got organized, and the debate "snowballed."

The tours are scheduled to run at least through Friday.

"The desert in an amazing place," he told his tour. "Once it's scarred up, it doesn't heal quickly."