Las Vegas housing project concerns the neighbors. Just ask this famed headliner
When he’s not wowing audiences at the Rio, the famed magician Teller enjoys life in a pocket of Las Vegas that still has a rural feel.
His southwest valley neighborhood has horses, chickens, homes on large lots, and stretches of open land. It’s a quiet place, and he and his neighbors like it that way, but they’re concerned that a proposed new housing project could usher in unwanted change.
“It will damage us,” Teller said.
The Clark County Planning Commission is scheduled Tuesday to consider plans by Richmond American Homes for a 99-lot subdivision on 19 acres just south of Blue Diamond Road at Tenaya Way.
Homebuilders have put up other projects over the past several years in the surrounding area. 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, currently falls under different land-use rules, and the builder wants 90 houses there, according to county staff reports.
As part of its proposal, Richmond American is seeking a zoning change and a changed land-use category for most of the project site.
The homebuilder did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
‘Refreshment of the spirit’
Southern Nevada has been growing fast for decades and is blanketed with cookie-cutter housing tracts. But there are still pockets of the Las Vegas Valley that have kept their rural feel, with ranch-style homes, horses and other traits that make the rowdy, casino-packed Strip seem a world away.
Teller, the mononymous, silent-on-stage half of longtime Vegas headliners Penn & Teller, said he’s lived in this part of the valley for almost 30 years. As he described it, he doesn’t oppose any and all development nearby, but he’s concerned that the new housing tract, with the influx of traffic it would bring into the community, will make people worried about riding their horses or taking walks.
He pointed to the now-quiet Meranto Avenue, which borders the project site to the south. According to Teller, Meranto is a horse-trail-type street with little traffic.
He said that when he comes home at night from his performances, he can hear chickens clucking as he drives in, calling it a “refreshment of the spirit to be able to do that.”
As he sees it, any time someone takes a bite out of an area like this, “you take away the rural character.”
‘Rural flavor’
Other neighbors also expressed concerns about an influx of traffic, including Olivia Hillcoat, a bartender who has lived in the area for several years.
Hillcoat bought her house in 2018 from builder D.R. Horton and said she enjoys the area’s rural feel.
She also noted there is a Walmart nearby but said it doesn’t affect the neighborhood “one bit.”
Shoppers there don’t need to drive through the surrounding residential community to access the big-box store, which is located at the corner of Blue Diamond and Rainbow Boulevard, two major thoroughfares.
Cynthia Parker, a retired economics professor, bought a house in the area in 2021 from builder Century Communities. She also wants to “maintain the rural flavor of the area.”
She said people have horses, chickens and other animals, and she pointed to the older homes on larger lots. All told, it feels like she lives in the countryside in the middle of Las Vegas.
“I like being in a nice, rural area,” Parker said. “It’s just peaceful.”
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
