Commissioners OK Gilcrease zone change

Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005 | 11:12 a.m.

Forty acres of the Gilcrease Orchard will soon be a 100-home subdivision.

Clark County commissioners unanimously approved a zone change request from Royal Construction Co. on Tuesday to allow the builder to construct 2.49 houses per acre on the land the company is purchasing from the Gilcrease Orchard Foundation. Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates was not present for the vote.

Final approval of the zone change was one of the last remaining conditions on the sale of the land, which Foundation President Mary Ellen Racel said should be completed by October.

"The sale isn't through until the check is in my hot little hands," said Racel, whose family has control of the orchard foundation.

The orchard has been losing upward of $200,000 a year since its founder, Ted Gilcrease, died in 2003, Racel said. She said she's hoping the sale of the 40 acres will allow the foundation to preserve the remaining 58 acres east of Tenaya Way on Grand Teton Drive as an orchard.

The $15 million will also go to help the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary on Racel Street and to restore the Gilcrease Ranch near Rebecca and Elkhorn roads, Bill Gilcrease, Ted's surviving brother, said.

He doesn't want to sell the orchard, but he doesn't see any other choice, he said.

Many of Gilcrease's friends and neighbors, however, believe he does have a choice, that the foundation and Gilcrease's other assets have been mismanaged somehow.

They say there is still a way to preserve the orchard.

Jeff and Grizel Herhold, the only neighbors to speak at Wednesday's commission hearing, said they may pursue some sort of injunction against the sale to protect the orchard and Bill Gilcrease.

"They keep saying the Gilcrease family," Jeff Herhold, a 53-year-old computer securities specialist, said. "None of this is being done by the Gilcrease family.

"... This is not the only choice to maintain the solvency of the orchard."

Grizel Herhold, a 52-year-old professional painter, said she was "very disgusted" with the zone change approval.

"But I'm not done," she said.

Both Herholds were among the recipients of a mass e-mail sent out Friday by Commissioner Chip Maxfield's office that noted the Gilcrease Orchard zoning item would be postponed. Then they received a new e-mail Tuesday saying it was back on the agenda for Wednesday.

They thought that e-mail kept most of the people in opposition to the sale from attending the hearing.

Maxfield acknowledged the miscommunication, but he said there was no reason to postpone the vote, especially since Royal Construction had reduced its zone change request to match the Lone Mountain master plan.

Royal Construction, which develops Spinnaker Homes, had initially requested a special use permit to allow the company to build up to three homes per acre. The company reduced its request when it became clear Maxfield wouldn't allow it to go through with the higher density, company lawyer Chris Kaempfer said.

The company plans to relocate or incorporate as many trees as possible into the subdivision's design, Kaempfer said.

Racel said she was glad there would be fewer homes on the 40-acre parcel, but she said the sale must still go through to keep trees on the remaining 60 acres.

She laughed at the idea that someone was considering legal action, but she was also not counting the sale a done deal.

"I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop," Racel said.