Preservation district delayed

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2001 | 10:44 a.m.

Objections by landowners have prompted the Henderson City Council to place on hold a proposed rural preservation district that would limit development on 2,980 acres in the city.

The council Tuesday also held off action on complaints by the Carpenters Union about unfair labor practices at the Henderson municipal parking garage, which is under construction. Ten union members attended the meeting.

Mayor Jim Gibson said the plan for the preservation district needed some fine tuning.

"Save about 90 of the 3,000 acres, I don't have a problem," Gibson said. "It's some of the detail that I'm not comfortable with."

As proposed, the new district would limit development to two homes per acre in four predominantly rural neighborhoods. In some cases, only one home per acre would be allowed, and commercial zoning would not be allowed. It goes beyond protections established by the state in 1999. The state protections run out in 2004.

Henderson planning codes allow up to six homes per acre in areas proposed for protection.

But the majority of development in the four neighborhoods has established a lifestyle of large-lot custom homes, horses and nighttime walks on streets lit by stars, not streetlights.

For more than two years Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers has led efforts to protect that lifestyle.

But for some places in the proposed districts, such as a stretch of homes along the south side of Serene Avenue in the Serene Country Estates, it appears to be too late for such protection.

Serene Avenue has become a major thoroughfare between a commercial corridor on Eastern Avenue and St. Rose Parkway, said George Garcia, a planning consultant.

"Tranquility is no longer possible there. It's no longer sustainable as single-family homes," Garcia said.

Bob Campbell, a political powerbroker in Henderson, argued a similar case for 70 acres in another proposed district, Mission and Paradise hills. Because the land borders a major road, is near a freeway, a church and a park, Campbell said, three homes per acre should be allowed.

The council will revisit the issue Oct. 2.