Ruling due on building more homes near pig farm

Diana Sahagun

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

The matter seems simple: Don't buy your home near a pig farm if you can't stand the smell.

But home sales continue to rise surrounding the pig farm near Ann Road and North Fifth Street in North Las Vegas, citizen complaints continue to mount, and a developer is requesting a zone change directly across the street from the farm to allow more homes per acre.

A decision by the North Las Vegas City Council Wednesday night could put single-family residential homes at North Fifth Street and Hammer Lane, directly across from R.C. Farms, a 6,000-head hog farm. The area is now zoned as ranch estates, which allows for a maximum of three homes an acre.

Vegas Equities, a real estate company planning to buy the property from a family trust, however, is requesting that the zoning be changed to R-1, which would allow six homes an acre.

The City Council will consider the zone change request Wednesday. The request passed the Planning Commission by a 4-3 margin on Dec. 22. Commissioners Laura Perkins, Tom Langford and Anita Wood voted against the request because of the location across from the farm. Commissioners Tom Lisiewski, Harry Shull, Christopher Montanez, and Nelson Stone voted in favor.

The three dissenting commissioners maintained that the intense smell was a reason to keep the area zoned exclusively for ranch estates. The four voting in favor reasoned that other land near R.C. Farms is already zoned R-1.

Wood said at the commission meeting that there is already a problem with residents living even farther away from the pig farm complaining to the city about the smell. Common sense, she said, tells her that residents shouldn't be any closer.

"I don't think you can explain to anyone how bad the smell is," Wood said Wednesday. "It's putting a lot of demand on the seller to disclose properly."

The potential buyers of the nearby property do not see the pig farm as a long-term problem.

"From our perspective, eventually the farm is going to go away," said Calvin Champlin, land-use planner with Quadrant Planning, who is representing Vegas Equities on this issue.

Bob Combs, whose R.C. Farms occupies an approximately 150-acre "county island" (land taxed by Clark County but surrounded by property within the city limits), said he has been approached by numerous developers to sell the property. He maintains that he will be willing to relocate his farm -- if a suitable location can be found.