Council to decide future of housing project

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Aug. 30, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

As Henderson resident Gene Emelko sees it, Texas-based homebuilder D.R. Horton wants to build a slum across the railroad tracks from his retirement home.

"The way these condominiums are built, you can't even see between them, they're just packed in so terribly tight," Emelko said. "Essentially, we think in the long term it's going to turn into a slum. It may not be politically correct to say it, but that's what we think."

Pushing through the maps unrolled against jars of lemon drops and raisins on his kitchen table, the radio systems designer pointed out several acres of proposed tri-plex condos bordering the Fiesta hotel-casino parking lot and a truck stop area. There were nine two-story units to an acre, or 27 families per acre, with no sidewalks and four-foot driveways.

Like most homeowners bordering the proposed 320-unit Fiesta Ranch project southeast of Lake Mead Drive and U.S. 95, Emelko wants fewer homes, he wants them one-story, and he'd prefer no condos at all.

On Tuesday, the Henderson City Council will decide on the issue at a public hearing. The Planning Commission has recommended approval of the project.

Jeff Anderson, a Las Vegas engineering director for D.R. Horton, says the planned condos would be part of a 34-acre gated community. Residents would pay $100 monthly dues for upkeep of nine acres of open space, including a three-acre park running between the 72 tri-plexes and 103 homes.

For land sandwiched between a casino and an industrial park on two sides, and homes on the other, 9.5 units per acre is compatible, Anderson said.

As proposed, his project is 60 percent more dense than the surrounding residential neighborhoods, where single-story homes average about six homes to an acre.

"We're building these same townhomes next to $300,000 homes in Old Vegas," Anderson said, referring to another development under way in southeast Henderson. "And the townhomes are not cheap by any means."

Townhome prices would range from $110,000 to $150,000. Homes would price as high as $164,000 -- roughly the same asking price as homes in the existing neighborhoods south and east of the project.

Still, after nearly five months of meetings between residents and lobbyist John Marchiano, who represents D.R. Horton, issues remain. Traffic may be the thorniest, Tracy Foutz, a city planning manager, said.

"All I can say is our traffic engineer has found the reports acceptable," Foutz said.

But not resident Rich McManaman, a retired carpenter from Chicago. He doesn't buy them. Since the spring, he has been sitting in the red leather interior of his Corvette across from the Fiesta, marking off cars in groups of five in a spiral notebook.

In a 12-hour period, he counted 6,468 cars going up and down Reserve Boulevard. So for 24 hours, he figures 12,936. If the project adds another 3,212 trips each day, that's an increase of 25 percent.

"We're the stepchildren of Henderson," McManaman said. "We're damn near all retired. For most of us, this is our last house. It's my last house. And this clown is going to come in here and destroy everything we have?"

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