Apartment project OK’d despite neighborhood angst

They understood that their chances for victory were slim.

But scores of North Las Vegas homeowners showed up anyway on Wednesday night to fight against the invasion of the "apartment people."

Increased crime, decreased home values, overcrowded schools and streets -- that's all the apartment people bring, neighbors told the City Council.

But there wasn't much the council could do about it, contracts being what they are.

At issue were developers' plans to build a 340-unit apartment complex on about 15 acres at the northwest corner of Revere Street and Centennial Parkway, near Seastrand Park, in North Las Vegas's Eldorado master-planned community. The council in a split decision voted to approve the site plan for the project.

While city officials don't necessarily support building a multifamily development in an area dominated by single-family homes, they're tied by a 1988 development agreement with Pardee Homes that allows such use of the land.

Jennifer Lazovich, an attorney for Pardee, didn't mince words while reminding the council of that agreement.

"This council has no legal basis to deny this application," she said. "If the council chooses to ignore this contract, obviously there will be consequences" in court.

Pardee is selling the 15 acres to another developer, Wood Partners, which plans to build apartments at the site.

Hundreds came to express their profound displeasure with the plans, many wearing red T-shirts and holding signs which read "No apartments." It was the first time in recent memory that the city has had to provide overflow audience seating.

In a heated public hearing that stretched to more than two hours, neighbors of the proposed complex beseeched council members to deny the site plan review for the apartments neighbors said will destroy their quality of life.

"The more rats you put together in one area, the more aggressive they become," one woman said.

"Show some guts!" one man yelled.

Many said the explosive growth of North Las Vegas should serve as a special circumstance to challenge the Pardee contract.

But the city attorney said the contract is air-tight.

"If it (the site plan review) wasn't approved ... it would be very difficult for me to defend the city," Carie Torrence said. "I think Pardee would prevail. This is a legally binding document."

Mayor Mike Montandon and council members Stephanie Smith and Robert Eliason voted to approve the site plan, while William Robinson and Shari Buck voted against it.

"There would be nothing more pleasing to me to stand up and say, 'I'm with you 100 percent,' " Smith said. "To me this is not an issue of where does my heart lie. I can't undo what has been done by the law."

The city must honor its commitments, Montandon said.

"In the short term, if you do not live up to your commitments, a judge can make you do so," he said. "In the long term, if you do not live up to your commitments, your ability to make future commitments is very limited."

Buck, whose home abuts Seastrand Park, encouraged neighbors to band together to "minimize the impact" of apartments.

"I don't want apartments there," she said. "But they're going to do what they're going to do."

Robinson, the only council member who was serving on the board when the 1988 contract was inked, called it wrong to now put apartments on the site.

"Why the heck did they wait so long?" he asked.

Pardee has agreed to avoid higher-density development on some of its other remaining vacant land in Eldorado as a concession, Lazovich said.

But such promises didn't appease the neighbors, many of whom said they had been lied to about what would go on the vacant land when they bought their homes.

Some said they were told Seastrand Park would be extended. Others said they were promised only single-family homes would be built there.

"Pardee sucks!" a few of the neighbors chanted as they left council chambers.

Sarah Humphreys, an Eldorado resident who organized neighbors and said about 1,300 of them had signed petitions against the apartments, was disappointed but not surprised by the outcome.

"Sometimes it just comes down to money," she said. "We're just residents, not big and powerful."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0285.