Recession strands some homeowners in partially built communities

Greg Geiger pulls into a parking lot two minutes from his home. He walks toward what was supposed to be his local supermarket.

They told us this would be open last year," Geiger says, gesturing at dormant backhoes and a sign offering the mammoth building on Blue Diamond Road for lease.

Geiger, a 52-year-old stock trader, lives in Mountain's Edge, one of many outlying valley communities where construction significantly slowed -- and, in some cases, stopped -- when the recession hit. In 2007, Geiger bought a three-bedroom townhome in the 3,500-acre master-planned community's Beacon Hill subdivision, based on what he considered promises, many of which have yet to be fulfilled.

"They used diagrams of the master plan as a sales tool," says Geiger, who chose Mountain's Edge over a similar community in Summerlin because it offered 500 more square feet for his $305,000.

"Now I wish I bought there instead," he says.

Focus Property Group, the developer of Mountain's Edge, is not responsible for what happens to land it sells to independent builders who change their plans -- in this case, Vons supermarket. (Voice mails left for Vons and Green Street Properties, the owner listed on the sign, were not returned.) Nevertheless, the developer's spokesman says the company sympathizes.

"We understand their disappointment," says Focus spokesman Mark Fiorentino. "We're disappointed ourselves. But we're doing everything we can to provide what we can out there, which is better than the alternative."

Geiger must drive by the nonsupermarket on every grocery-shopping trip to another Vons four miles farther.

"Basically," Geiger says, "this sucks."

Half a block from their North Las Vegas house, Tasha Pittser, 32, and her husband, Matt, 38, stroll past a row of never-inhabited townhomes whose open innards invite the elements, wildlife and trespassers. The building permit announced by the sign in front -- issued to Irvine, Calif.-based Standard Pacific Homes -- expired in November 2008.

The Pittsers bought into the Springs at Centennial Ranch when they relocated from Denver in 2003, about a year before the development was fully built out. Tasha, who works from home, described it as "a bubble in the middle of nowhere," and says that description still applies.

"They built a storage complex, a CVS and a gas station around us," she says, "and that's it."

The Pittsers are primarily concerned about the crime they say is invited by the unfinished townhomes. Part of a development called Morning Ridge, they face a park favored by the Pittsers' children, Jack, 5, and Ava, 3.

"Kids used to break in here and steal things," says Matt, an executive at the nearby Sysco plant. (John Stephens, chief financial officer for Standard Pacific, confirms that his company still owns the property, which is guarded around the clock by a security officer in a trailer. He refuses to say when building will restart, only that "we're evaluating our strategy.")

According to Rick Mish, block captain for the Pittsers' Neighborhood Watch association, 13 of the Springs' approximately 100 houses reported break-ins in the past year -- an increase of 100 percent over the year before. (North Las Vegas police say they received three burglary reports from the area during that time -- although break-ins frequently go unreported.)

"Where you have a vacant building, you'll get more vandalism, because it's an empty place for people to go," says police public information officer Chrissie Coon. "And secondary crimes in the area could increase. But it doesn't make sense that burglaries would increase in occupied neighborhoods adjacent to the dwelling."

There are no city, county or federal agencies set up specifically to address complaints from homeowners who claim to be hurt by halted construction, according to the Nevada State Contractor's Board, the Nevada Department of Business and Industry and the Nevada Real Estate Division. The matter is a civil issue to be taken up with the current land owner.

"Whoever steps in, the bank or another builder, it's ultimately going to be built," says Rick Rush, project manager with Land Interests Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based asset management company hired in April by San Diego-based Key Bank to address grievances brought by homeowners in a northwest Las Vegas community called Hillside.

"It's just gonna take time," he says.

During that time, however, communities risk falling into downward property-value spirals from which they may never recover. Both Geiger and the Pittsers -- who are $60,000 upside down in a house they purchased well before the real-estate boom -- suspect that plummeting property values have caused many of their previous home-owning neighbors to be replaced by low-income renters.

"We moved near Aliante, thinking that the nice neighborhood they had would spread into the surrounding neighborhoods," Tasha Pittser says. "But it didn't happen."

By the time construction begins again by their house, Tasha says, the Springs at Centennial Ranch could become "a slum."

"It is a real concern," says Joseph Kraemer, Realtor with the valley's Realty One Group. "A lot of investors are buying right now -- cash deals -- and they couldn't care less who they get in there."

As for whether people like Geiger and the Pittsers should cut their losses or ride it out, Kraemer says the decision should depend on three factors: "how upside down they are, whether they can afford to buy or rent a new place easily, and how unlivable the community has become."

At the Vons at Durango Drive and Warm Springs Road, Geiger runs into a neighbor in the produce section. They chat about an upcoming meeting. (Geiger organizes one every other day, independent of his homeowners' association.)

"I'll put a flier on your door later," Geiger tells his neighbor.

They're strategizing the best response to Focus' attempt to scale back plans for the biggest of the five Mountain's Edge parks it promised, from 90 acres to 25. (So far, one park has been built.)

"We're going to complete the parks, no question about that," Fiorentino says. "However, we're going to have to complete them on a smaller scale than what we originally proposed. So we have been working to gather input from the residents, the HOA and the county on what is the best way to do it."

Geiger's meeting will convene outside another neighbor's house. Even homeowner advocacy is made more difficult by geography, since Focus has yet to build the community center shown in its original plans. (For one recent meeting, Geiger got a nearby car dealership to agree to let him use its conference room, in the hopes that it might stir some sales.)

Staying and fighting is what the Pittsers intend to do, too. They've taken an active Neighborhood Watch role and enrolled Jack and Ava in private schools.

"We're going to do our best to protect them from influences we don't want them to have," Matt says. "And we're not going to walk away from our house.

"That's not who we are."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.