Residents say rural label too late to do any good

Adrienne Packer

Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

With casinos and convenience stores sprouting up in desert neighborhoods once sprinkled with ranch-style homes, most homeowners in sparsely populated areas of the Las Vegas Valley welcome the label of a rural neighborhood preservation area.

Sharon Linsenbardt and about 20 of her neighbors don't want that protection from Clark County. Linsenbardt says it's too late, that businesses already have moved in too close to her.

"Ten years ago I wanted this area protected, and they said it was way too premature to do that," Linsenbardt said. "Now they're saying they're giving me what I want. After 10 years, development has encroached to the point it's in front of my face."

So far, Linsenbardt's pleas to have her 5 acres removed from a proposed rural neighborhood preservation designation in the northwest have been ignored, despite a state law that gives Linsenbardt the right to be left out.

Commissioners on Wednesday will consider granting Linsenbardt's neighborhood the protective label, which would mean they plan to keep the area rural by prohibiting commercial businesses.

Linsenbardt looked up and down her gravel road and laughed at the thought.

Linsenbardt has chickens, horses and peacocks among other farm animals on the land she has owned since 1978. The stretch of Grand Teton Drive in front of her home is gravel, but Linsenbardt doesn't consider her home rural anymore.

Gilchrist Orchard -- which becomes a public market on weekends -- is across her unpaved road, a fire station is planned a block east and a high school will be built a block west. Mountain Spa, a sprawling resort and golf course, which recently played host to a tournament for a local topless club, is just across Tenaya Way.

"I have fruit pickers coming out my ears. I have naked girls zooming around in their golf carts," Linsenbardt said. "How is this residential?"

Grand Teton is being graded to four lanes on either side of the stretch in front of Linsenbardt's home. County Public Works spokesman Bobby Shelton said Grand Teton eventually will be extended, and it's just a matter of time.

Realizing the fate of her property, which will abut a four-lane thoroughfare similar to Ann Road, Linsenbardt wants the freedom to change the zoning of her property to commercial to suit a busier road.

"It doesn't need to be a commercial business that's stone and glass and three stories tall," Linsenbardt said. "It could be an office that provides community services."

Linsenbardt hasn't thought seriously about converting her home to a business, but tossed out business ideas such as a cafe, nursery or feed store.

Under the state law, she points out, commissioners have the authority to leave her out of the protected zoning if she so requests.

The statute says "the governing body may for good cause shown, allow a greater density or intensity of use when that use is less than 330 feet from the rural neighborhood preservation."

She and her neighbors have had no luck getting in touch with their commissioner, Chip Maxfield. Maxfield didn't return repeated phone calls from the Sun.

An Aug. 15 meeting involving county planners and residents to try to strike a compromise was fruitless.

In an Aug. 20 letter to commissioners, resident Phil Watson complained that county zoning administrator Chuck Pulsifer opened the meeting by saying his staff opposes exemptions to the plan.

"He started that meeting saying there will be no zone changes or exemptions," said Watson, who lives along Ann Road. "They're looking right over our heads. I don't have a lawyer, but if they vote me in (the preservation area), I'll get one."

Pulsifer on Friday said it doesn't matter whether properties such as Watson's and Linsenbardt's remain in their existing zoning or are included in a rural neighborhood preserve. Either way, he said, property owners would have to apply for a non-conforming zone change to put anything other than homes on the land.

"This puts the property owner and future owners on notice that the board thinks this is a residential area and you should probably not plan on having a more intensive use," Pulsifer said. "It doesn't prohibit her from asking for a more intensive use."

The county doesn't have the sewer or water systems to accommodate commercial businesses in the area, Pulsifer said, adding that Linsenbardt has the option of annexing into the city of Las Vegas.

Linsenbardt is well aware of that option. However, the costs of hooking up to city water and sewer systems are prohibitive, not to mention the fact that she would have to give up 25 feet of her front yard for rights of way, she said.

Linsenbardt realizes she is bitter, but rightfully so, she believes. She has lived in two homes her entire life. The first one, near Stewart and Eastern, was condemned in the late 1970s to make way for Interstate 95.

She already fought off the county's plans to construct the Las Vegas Beltway through her property.

"I said over my ... dead body," Linsenbardt said. "Now someone is trying to impose zoning on me that I do not wish for. I just want my options to be open in the future."