Gated Summerlin community is shocked by armed robbery

David Kihara

Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 | 10:39 a.m.

With gated neighborhoods already numerous around the valley, and more going up all the time, recent developments in the posh Siena golf course community in Summerlin might serve as a reality check.

A man who stepped out of his Siena house on Cerotto Lane a little before 3 p.m. on Aug. 9 was robbed at gunpoint while walking to his mailbox. The victim and investigators surmised that the robber must have gotten into Siena by following a resident through one of the unguarded mechanical gates.

The robbery was a shock to residents of the 55-and-over, age-restricted community. Within a day, residents were posting messages on a cyberspace message board about the robbery.

"This is a very distressing matter, and my heart goes out to the poor gentleman who endured the robbery," wrote one resident on Aug. 9.

The five members of the board of directors of the Siena Community Association -- the equivalent of the homeowners association -- unanimously decided to temporarily close four of the community's six gates and only allowed residents and visitors to enter through two guarded gates.

But after a backlash from some residents who complained about the inconvenience that caused, the board modified the closed-gate policy Thursday night at a town hall meeting.

All six gates will be open to residents from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. After 10 p.m. residents will have to go through the manned gates until 6 the next morning.

Security is a top priority for the community, which, according to the Siena Web site, is "secluded behind a six-foot high masonry perimeter wall and manned gate-guarded entries."

The board also plans to study ways to ensure security of the community. In the past two months, the board learned that four crimes had been reported, from the armed robbery to someone rifling through a convertible with its top down.

There are more than 3,000 residents in Siena, said D.C. Collins, general manager for the Siena Community Association, with more than 2,000 homes.

While some residents applauded the temporary decision to lock the gates, others immediately came out in strong opposition.

"The solution of simply closing the gates to make us safe is narrow-minded and hysterical," wrote Marvin Lamm in a message posted on Monday. "The walls surrounding Siena may give comfort to the fearful, but the fact is, if someone wants to go over the wall and commit a crime, it will happen."

Another resident, John Martin, said on Thursday that the closure of the gates poses an inconvenience for the residents like himself who must drive five to 10 minutes longer to get home through a different entrance.

But his major complaint was that with the decrease in entry points, he will see a decrease in his $500,000-plus home. Martin is a licensed real estate broker.

On Thursday night, however, there was no proof presented to the board that property values would drop.

Bob Brandt, a resident and real estate agent who said he has sold more than 300 homes in Siena, declined to comment on whether the property values of the area will decrease. He said, however, that "it is hard to find a home for under $400,000."

George Roberts, president of the board of directors, said the four gates were closed only for entry and they could still be used to exit the community. He said on Thursday that the decision to lock up those four gates was for security reasons and were not necessarily tied to the Aug. 8 robbery.

"About 200 residents demanded that the gates be closed" at a community meeting, he said.

He said that he didn't believe property values were decreasing. Quite the opposite, he said that the values will increase with the increased security.

In previous postings on the message board, he said the unmanned gates had not been effective in keeping out unauthorized vehicles from the community, and that "the gates might as well be standing open, for all the good they do."

"I view the closing of the gates as a necessary, temporary solution to an immediate problem," he wrote. "As your director and board president, I will never agree to sacrifice our security for the sake of mere convenience."

He also said that emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks could enter the complex because they have universal transponders that allow for automatic entry.

Under the Nevada Revised Statues, the board has the authority to close some of the entrances to the community, Collins said.

Matt Di Orio, information officer with the Nevada Department of Business & Industry's Real Estate Division, directed inquiries into the legality of the closure for entry of the gates to a subsection of the Nevada Revised Statute that states, "an association may not restrict the access of a person to any of his property."

The statute goes on, however, to say that the association may restrict this access "to and from a unit' if the right to restrict was included in a declaration previously.

Ultimately, Di Orio said the issue would be decided if it was brought before the Commission for Common-Interest Communities, the state's commission on deciding such matters.

Di Orio said there are 2,200 common-interest communities registered with the state, and more than 2,000 are located in Southern Nevada.