Public hearing set on residential plan

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2002 | 9:32 a.m.

A controversial plan to build a 632-acre residential development in the southern foothills of Henderson, including two sprawling apartment complexes on what many consider the city's most beautiful real estate, will be the subject of a public hearing Thursday.

When the project was presented in September 2000 to nearby residents of the age-restricted Sun City MacDonald Ranch, it showed just 90 homes on 55 acres.

By November, when developer Rich MacDonald withdrew his application to avoid an expected denial by the Henderson Planning Commission, it had grown to a 632-acre master-planned community, including 946 homes and apartments and 26 acres of commercial development.

The project continues to inspire Sun City residents to travel in chartered buses to City Hall for meetings. They argue that the project could harm the natural beauty of the hillsides, ruin their unobstructed views of the hillsides, create traffic problems, overload flood control channels and pack more homes than ordinances permit.

In at least three instances, ordinances appear to support their views.

The new project requests waivers that would permit 990 housing units rather than the maximum of 946, as well as permission to build homes along hillside ridgelines -- prohibited outright by ordinances passed to help preserve the hills.

Another requested waiver would allow 742 units of apartment housing to empty onto interior roads rather than onto a major road at least 60 feet wide.

MacDonald says he is requesting the waivers to shift the bulk of his project west, tucking all but a dozen half-million-dollar homes from the view of Sun City residents.

City planners agree overall with MacDonald's new proposal, Shannon Casey, a planner in the community development department, said. They recommend approval of the more closely packed housing because, in return, MacDonald plans to disturb at most 220 acres of the total 632-acre project -- 23 fewer acres than he is allowed by the hillside ordinance.

But city planners recommend denying homes on ridgelines and plans that show apartments emptying onto interior streets.

The Henderson City Council is scheduled for a final review of the project March 5.