Columnist Susan Snyder: Sprawl’s blight overcoming neighborhood

Friday, July 19, 2002 | 2:11 a.m.

Some residents call it the "woods within the city."

Not that there are any real woods along Clarkway Drive. But there are some older trees, and likely there were more, once upon a time.

Remnants of a once-rural past unravel along its length -- exactly two-tenths of a mile from Bonanza Road to Washington Avenue in the heart of Las Vegas. Spacious lots surround long, low ranch-style homes. One abuts a large corral with horses and baled hay.

Tom and Janet DeMarco's home at 651 Clarkway sits just north of Bonanza, behind an empty lot they also own. DeMarco says his parents bought the L-shaped property about 50 years ago.

He lived there most of his childhood, moved away after he graduated from Rancho High School and returned 11 years ago. His mother, who is 87, now lives in Sun City Summerlin.

A rental storage-unit business sits on the south side of Bonanza, directly across from DeMarco's home. A storage lot for heavy equipment and cranes sits on one side of that, and a U-Haul rental lot is on the other side. Next to the U-Haul lot is a landscaping rock and gravel business.

DeMarco says it's obviously a business district, but the neighborhood on his side of the street still is residential and "pretty quiet."

That's one reason DeMarco is set against the landscaping company owner's hopes of expanding across the street and onto a lot that abuts DeMarco's property.

"It's too noisy, and then there's the dirt factor and air pollution," DeMarco said. "I have no problem with them changing the zoning (to light manufacturing). But I do have a problem with the type of business."

On the east side of this lot in question is the old Binion ranch, which sits at the corner of Bonanza and Tonopah Avenue. The home was burned on the inside in a fire about 10 years ago. The exterior is intact, but boarded up.

It's one of the historic sites to be recognized along Las Vegas' new Pioneer Trail, an urban footpath that leads pedestrians through areas of Las Vegas that were settled and developed by people from a diverse mix of ethnic backgrounds.

DeMarco says a lot filled with landscaping rock and gravel wouldn't look good along a historic trail. He says he and a neighbor have discussed opening some kind of business that would be compatible to such pedestrian traffic. He's not sure what that would be, but he's sure a rock yard next door isn't a good fit.

"It's going to be hard to do something that's nice next to a rock and sand company," he said.

The rock and sand company has already been denied a zoning request to change the property's type of use. Its owners are going to appeal that decision to the Las Vegas City Council.

The bay window of DeMarco's dining room looks out across the empty lot and onto Bonanza Road as it always has. But the view is very different than it used to be.

Bonanza once was a tree-lined street with only two lanes, DeMarco recalled.

"I used to walk from here to Rancho High School," he said. "We were gone 17 years, and during that time they built the freeways and all these businesses."

Time marches to its own drum.

And the woods have given way to the city.