Nevada lawmakers want $25M more for Windsor Park project

Nevada lawmakers are seeking an additional $25 million for a program to build new homes for residents of a sunken North Las Vegas neighborhood.

A bill introduced Friday in the Legislature’s special session aims to revise a 2023 measure that allocated $37 million for the development of a new subdivision for residents of Windsor Park, a historically Black neighborhood that has grappled for decades with widespread structural damage. The bill also allowed the homeowners to exchange their houses for the newly built ones.

Gov. Joe Lombardo signed that measure into law, and construction of the housing tract has already started.

State Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, introduced that bill. She is also a member of the Senate Jobs and Economy Committee, which sponsored the measure in the special session to make several changes to the previously approved legislation.

State Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop, D-Las Vegas, is chair of the committee.

Among other things, the bill would require that the entity picked to develop the housing tract also be hired, without formal bidding, to perform additional work related to the project, including demolishing vacated homes in Windsor Park to clear space for a public park.

The measure would also allocate an additional $25 million from Nevada’s general fund.

93-lot subdivision already approved

Construction crews recently broke ground on the new Windsor Park community, located along Carey Avenue just west of Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Project plans approved by the city called for a 93-lot subdivision, and the developer’s $37 million contract with the Nevada Housing Division stipulated the construction of up to 93 single-family homes, records show.

Windsor Park was built in the 1960s over geological faults, and its homes, roads and utilities started sinking decades ago after groundwater was pumped from an aquifer.

The neighborhood, near North Las Vegas Airport, is now laced with empty lots, cracked roads and damaged houses.

Last year, the Housing Division awarded the contract to develop the project to Community Development Programs Center of Nevada, a nonprofit affordable-housing firm led by former Las Vegas councilman and Raiders player Frank Hawkins.

North Las Vegas’ Planning Commission approved his project plans this past June, followed by the City Council’s approval in July.

The bulk of the project funding, at $25 million, was allocated from federal COVID relief funds, while the remaining $12 million came from the state.

Close ties between developer and senator

Hawkins has known Neal’s family for decades, contributed for years to her campaigns and previously employed her at his housing firm, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last year.

He was one of only two bidders for the Windsor Park project, and his firm scored higher. But multiple officials involved with the process had concerns with both bids and suggested releasing the contract again to see if more developers would apply, according to emails obtained from the Housing Division through a public records request.

Neal was involved with the contracting process as a member of an advisory committee but opted out of reviewing the bids, citing Hawkins’ friendship with her late father, Joe Neal, who died in 2020 at age 85 and was Nevada’s first Black state senator.

Despite this, she told officials about her concerns with the other applicant at least twice, emails show.

She also wrote in an email that a “decision to move forward needs to be made” and that she heard Hawkins wanted the job.

“There is only one clear person who is willing to do this work, qualified and will do this,” Neal wrote to Housing Division officials, adding that to “drag this out further is a problem.”

Neal and Hawkins have both contended there were no improprieties in the bidding process.

“We have always adhered to ethical and transparent practices, and the suggestion that this process was influenced by inappropriate political maneuvering is both inaccurate and disappointing,” Hawkins previously told the Review-Journal.

Neal previously told the Review-Journal that she wasn’t putting pressure on the process and that she was acting in the best interests of the residents.

“I didn’t try to stray anyone anywhere,” she said, adding the “best person won the bid.”

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