Opponents hope right-of-way law will derail monorail

Adrienne Packer

Friday, March 24, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

In their continuing battle against a proposed monorail that will run just 50 feet from their homes, Desert Inn Estates residents have filed a second lawsuit that could toss the $650 million project off track.

The lawsuit recently filed in District Court claims that a 40-foot strip of property where the monorail is scheduled to cross belongs to the Desert Inn Estates homeowners, not Clark County.

The strip of property is included in the monorail route approved by Clark County commissioners last year. The land in question runs between the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce on Twain Avenue and the walled Desert Inn Estates.

The lawsuit, which names the county and all seven commissioners as defendants, says Desert Inn homeowners dedicated the land to Clark County in the 1950s to use as a public right-of-way. The property was developed into a public street.

According to the lawsuit, the agreement between the county and homeowners said once the land was no longer used as a right-of-way, the property would be returned to the homeowners.

Now homeowners claim the county had no right to give the MGM Grand-Bally's Monorail LLC -- the company behind the monorail project -- use of the land.

"The fact all this land was supposed to revert back to us was a brand-new eye opener," said Paula Quagliana, president of the Desert Inn Homeowners Association. "You can't just take away property without just compensation. They had an obligation to give that property back to the homeowners."

The strip of land behind the Chamber of Commerce is used for parking, Quagliana said. Had homeowners known that they owned the land, the chamber would not have had sufficient parking and might not have been built.

"If we had known about it, they wouldn't have been able to build the chamber there," Quagliana said. "We were not given property information from the county."

The lawsuit, which was filed March 9, is the second suit filed by the Desert Inn homeowners in connection with the monorail project.

Last year the homeowners association filed a lawsuit claiming the monorail would reduce property values within the exclusive golf course community. Residents claimed a minor victory last month when a federal judge denied the monorail company's request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The monorail project is an extension of the existing system that runs between the MGM Grand hotel-casino and Bally's hotel-casino. The proposed 4-mile addition would ultimately link Bally's to the Sahara hotel-casino on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip.

The route veers off the Strip at Sands Avenue and turns onto Paradise Road, coming within feet of the wall surrounding the Desert Inn Estates community.