Despite opposition, Henderson office park plan OK’d

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001 | 10:46 a.m.

The Henderson City Council approved an 88,000-square-foot office park in a residential zone Tuesday, despite two recommended denials from the Planning Commission and written opposition from more than 50 neighbors of the project at Horizon Ridge Parkway and Sandy Ridge Avenue.

Council members debated the issue for more than two hours before overriding citizens' objections and their own traffic safety concerns to approve the project 4-1.

Councilman Steven Kirk, who cast the lone dissenting vote, noted that the council rezoned several nearby parcels as commercial because of the unusual expense involved in developing them otherwise. This 11-acre parcel posed no such challenge, he said.

"I do not see anything unusual about the property that compels me to say it must be commercial," Kirk said. "The only compelling reason to make it commercial is that everything else around it is commercial, and I just don't agree with that."

Neither did neighbors.

"We're not the people who bought next to the airport and came to claim they're building a runway next to our houses," Robert Butler, of nearby Mizzoni Circle, said. "We bought our houses in the middle of a residential development."

Karen Sexton, president of Sandy Ridge Homeowners Association, said since she moved to the neighborhood more two years ago, she has watched 11 of 21 residential lots be rezoned commercial.

"I'm worried about the view of yet another commercial building. The parking lot, the overhead lights, the neon signs," Sexton said. "I want to look out my window at other homes."

Ann Adam, president of Sun Ridge MacDonald Ranch Community Association, pointed out the narrow, undulating curves of Sandy Ridge Avenue. At 60 feet wide including the sidewalks, the street falls far short of the 80 feet required for roadways in commercial zones.

But Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers said ordinances are not black-and-white. She said the purpose of the city council and planning commission is to use discretion and grant waivers.

Cyphers added several conditions in approving the office park. Retail sales will be restricted to sales incidental to a main office business, as will business hours. Trash pickup will mirror residential trash pickup. And a meeting will be scheduled to work on lighting issues.

Still, traffic studies indicate that the office park will generate nine times the traffic as that of a single-family residential development. The increased traffic will pack a road residents say already is dangerous.

After the meeting, Mayor Jim Gibson said one of the primary beneficiaries of the office park will be the master-planned communities of Anthem Sun City and Seven Hills, he said.

Neither of those high-end communities have commercial zones.