Las Vegas housing project that concerned neighbors moves forward

A homebuilder bought a spread of rural-area land in Las Vegas for a project that raised concerns among the neighbors.

Richmond American Homes purchased 18.4 acres just south of Blue Diamond Road at Tenaya Way for $23.25 million, property records show. The sale closed last month.

Clark County commissioners in early December approved plans by Richmond American for a 99-lot housing development on the southwest valley site.

Multiple neighbors — including the famed magician Teller, who has lived in the area for about 30 years — said they worried the project would bring an influx of traffic to the quiet, surrounding community, which has horses, chickens, stretches of open land, and homes on large lots.

Builders have put up other housing tracts over the past several years in the surrounding area, a designated Rural Neighborhood Preservation zone. They built homes on roughly half-acre lots, given the area’s land-use rules that prevent suburban-style projects with houses crammed together on small parcels.

A 5-acre section of Richmond American’s project site falls under those rules and would have nine, large lots in compliance with those policies.

But the balance of the site, closer to Blue Diamond, fell under different land-use rules, and the builder drew up plans for 90 lots there.

Caroline Greene, who lives near the site, told the County Commission at the Dec. 3 meeting that the project plan “absolutely destroys” the area’s rural character.

She said that people ride horses, walk their dogs and ride bikes along Meranto Avenue, which borders the project site to the south. Greene argued that Meranto would become a more typical suburban street that drivers would use to access the new development.

Teller, the mononymous, silent-on-stage half of longtime Vegas headliners Penn &Teller, previously described Meranto as a horse-trail-type street with little traffic.

Land-use specialist Stephanie Gronauer, representing Richmond American, has said that the Nevada Department of Transportation approved a median cut on Blue Diamond at Tenaya.

This would allow westbound drivers to turn south off the thoroughfare toward the new subdivision, meaning they won’t have to drive through the surrounding residential area to access it.

Gronauer, a partner with law firm Kaempfer Crowell, also told the County Commission that Meranto is a public street that anyone can use, and she argued that the neighbors’ goal “has been to get us to go away.”

Commissioner Justin Jones, whose district includes the project site, said at the meeting that Richmond American had “bent over backward” to come up with a proposal that meets the community’s needs and protects the rural preservation zone.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.