Editorial: Get tougher on obstinate developer

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 9:14 a.m.

Common business sense tells us that most developers of a sprawling residential community would want an elementary school to be a part of their master plan. Most, we think, would agree in a heartbeat to donate 10 acres for the school, which would be an amenity they could boast of in their sales brochures.

But not Rhodes Homes, which for years has been refusing to honor a 1996 agreement with Clark County to set aside 10 acres at its nearly 1,400-acre Rhodes Ranch development in southwest Clark County. Rhodes Homes has already built 4,800 homes at the site and has been pulling 100 building permits a month, on its way toward building a total of 9,000 homes there.

Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald, who was appointed to her District F seat in April by Gov. Kenny Guinn, quickly found the way to bring Rhodes Homes to the negotiating table. She put a hold on all building permits for Rhodes Ranch until a plan has been finalized for an elementary school. Talks are now under way for a site just west of Rhodes Ranch, on public land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.

This is progress, but hardly a solution. The school should be within the development, on land Rhodes Homes agreed to donate in exchange for approval to build the community. The taxpayers should not have to sacrifice land so that Rhodes can weasel out of his responsibility to provide a school site. In a more sane planning world, Rhodes would be required to donate, or provide at deep discount, land for two or three elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.

The school district and county have been more than accommodating. Early in the development they suspended, but never canceled, the elementary school agreement because they were told Rhodes Ranch would be an age-restricted community. When Rhodes Homes began building homes for families with children in 1998, the agreement was back on. The company should have honored it then. It should be forced to honor it now.