Monday, April 5, 2004 | 11:33 a.m.
Scotch 80s residents may yet get their gate, whether they all want it or not.
A city of Las Vegas committee of two council members is to consider today an ordinance change that makes it easier for neighborhoods to take over their streets, something that Scotch 80s gating advocates have pushed since fall. Once they own the streets, they can control access to the neighborhood.
The ordinance is to be introduced at Wednesday's City Council meeting, and could be adopted at the meeting after that, on April 21.
Proponents of gating the neighborhood say it would make their streets quieter and safer, and relieve the city of the burden of maintaining the roadway. Why shouldn't residents be able to determine the fate of their neighborhood, they ask? They point to the success in gating Rancho Nevada in the early 1990s, the only time previously that a neighborhood has taken over its streets and shut itself off from traffic.
"I want it to be a good place to live," said Danny Piper, who is driving the proposal, in a previous Sun article. More recently, he said he was pleased with the progress of the ordinance thus far: "We keep moving these things one inch at a time. We'll get there. I keep telling everyone here, hang in there, we'll see the benefit."
But opponents question whether it's fair to neighbors just outside the proposed gates who consider themselves part of the same community, especially if the neighborhood boundaries are unclear, and whether it's fair to neighbors inside the proposed gates who don't want any part of the plan.
"I bought over there because I'm tired of homeowners associations. I wanted a decent place to live without a bunch of haggling going on," said Ralph Zimmerman, who lives in the Scotch 80s in the 2100 block of Silver. "I belong to three other ones and there's not one of them I really like."
The boundary of the area that would be gated would be Charleston on the north, Rancho on the west and Oakey on the south. The eastern boundary would be Martin Luther King Boulevard and Shadow Lane.
Major work to Interstate 15 may change the area, and residents just outside the Scotch 80s could be reduced to a buffer for their "interior Scotch 80s" neighbors, including Mayor Oscar Goodman, entertainer Jerry Lewis and other high-profile Las Vegans.
Goodman has declined to discuss the issue, and has said he will abstain from voting on it.
There also are technical questions about how the ordinance change would affect established neighborhoods: who would be notified of a request to make streets private; how the city would calculate subdivision boundaries in older areas that may have been subdivided more than once; and whether there ought to be a length of time specified between when a street is renovated to when it can be privatized. The city performed more than $300,000 worth of work on the streets in the neighborhood several years ago.
The proposal is backed by Councilwoman Janet Moncrief, who represents the district that contains the Scotch 80s. She was not available to comment on the issues raised by Zimmerman and others.
In a previous interview she said she has not received other requests to gate neighborhoods. She said one of her medical partners in practice lives in Rancho Nevada, where "the whole neighborhood is very happy about it (the gating in the early 1990s)."
Moncrief said she lives in a neighborhood that is gated, but not guarded. She said that there are strict homeowners' association rules, and "property values seem to stay up nicely because the rules are so strict."
The homeowners association could be a major sticking point for people like Zimmerman, who said he wouldn't mind the gate as much as the association, which would charge residents for the upkeep of the gate, the cost of the guard, and the streets.
Richard McKnight, a lawyer who lives in Rancho Nevada and helped that neighborhood become gated, is working on the Scotch 80s gating. He said in Rancho Nevada, those who did not want to participate in the homeowners' association did not have to.
McKnight said homeowners only pay dues for maintaining the streets, and the gate. He also said that only homeowners who opted into the original gating are charged. He said the homeowners' association is now working on whether people who buy homes from non-members can be charged dues.
McKnight said the city doesn't lose anything by giving the street to the neighborhood.
"This is a great benefit. They (the city) no longer have to maintain the streetlights, maintain the streets, to sweep the streets," McKnight said.
McKnight said he didn't think that any city resident should have a right to enter any neighborhood.
"I guess I have a little trouble with the idea of why you should be able to drive around in my community, endangering kids," McKnight said.
Jennifer Norrid, who lives outside the proposed gate boundaries, but within the area bounded by I-15, Charleston, Rancho and Oakey, said she's concerned about the lack of communication on the project.
"First, we need to know what impact the I-15 project will have on our eastern border. Second, everyone deserves to know key details about the homeowner association's plans for finances and governance," she said. "The need for all neighbors to receive consistent and detailed information is why we have urged Councilwoman Moncrief to sponsor a meeting for all neighbors within the major street boundaries."
Zimmerman said he doesn't need to know much more. He's not interested in a homeowners association.
"If they try to force it on me, they're in for one heck of a lawsuit because that's not what I bought in there for," Zimmerman said. "I bought hoping to preserve my real estate bundle of rights and I don't intend to just walk away from it."
archive
