Columnist Susan Snyder: Their house is no longer dream home

Tuesday, June 6, 2000 | 9:34 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Lance Harmell loves kids as much as the next guy.

Shoot, he and his wife have a 3-year-old son and a baby on the way.

He has nothing against day-care centers. He takes his toddler to one. But he is unhappy about one being built across the street from his new home. And there's not a thing he can do about it.

Although his Silverado Hills II neighborhood is a residential zone, which allows day-care centers, Harmell says he and his wife wouldn't have built their dream home at 950 Aspen Breeze if they'd known "residential" meant something other than a private home could be across the street.

"This is not a home. This is a commercial property," he says about the Kids R Kids center due to open later this year. "This is a for-profit business that has a parking lot and all the traffic that goes with it."

Clark County officials have said they are sorry. But the center is allowed under a zoning change made about two years ago, around the same time people were moving into new homes near Serene Avenue and Maryland Parkway.

"It happened just about the time we closed (the purchase)," Harmell said. "They never gave us the opportunity to fight against this."

They tried. County officials sent residents a notice listing the date zoning commissioners would consider the project. Harmell says he was too new and didn't get one.

And other residents didn't understand that the section of Paradise Road where the center would sit was the unmarked section near their homes, said Cherise Harris, another neighbor.

"There was no sign there (for Paradise)," she said.

When Harris realized what was happening she collected 33 signatures on a petition asking zoning commissioners to reject the project. It didn't work.

The mother of four says she doesn't mind having a day-care center behind her home. She does mind the absence of a crosswalk on Serene, where dozens of schoolchildren will cross each day in front of parents dropping off their tots.

"I know how crazy it is when people are late for work and dropping kids off at a day-care center," Harris said. "All four of mine have to cross that street."

She's still bugging county traffic engineers for a crosswalk. She hasn't received an answer yet.

After almost two years the whole thing still rankles Harmell. He works as a bartender at one of the big resorts on the Strip. He and his wife saved three years for the down payment on their first home. They built it big enough to grow in and planned to live there awhile.

"We paid an extra $15,000 to have a balcony on the front of our house. You think we'll use it? No," he said. "We live in brand-new homes, and none of us wants to live here anymore."

Buyers must beware in these days of fast and furious development, the residents said. Read the codes. Understand the definitions. Know the street names, even if the signs aren't up yet. Speak up at the meetings before it's too late.

Harris said that alone has been a valuable lesson.

"A lot of people don't realize they have a say in something," she said. "I didn't."