Built by Yvonne ‘erroneously’ listed as contractor

Marshall Allen and Tony Cook

Monday, Feb. 26, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

The Clark County building documents seemed clear enough.

Built By Yvonne, a design firm owned by Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, would build a custom 7,700-square-foot home in Summerlin for Dr. Raj Chanderraj.

Chanderraj is with a doctor's group that Atkinson Gates had voted to award a lucrative UMC contract - without disclosing the conflict of interest posed by her design firm's side work with the doctor.

Asked about the apparent conflict by the Sun on Jan. 29, Atkinson Gates said that she was just one of three bidders vying to build Chanderraj's house. The doctor had not made a final decision, she said.

The Sun eventually got access to the county building documents. They show that building plans and a permit application, dated Jan. 25 and 26, respectively, list Built by Yvonne as the contractor. That was days before she said Chanderraj had not made a final choice.

So armed with the new documents last week, a reporter spoke again to representatives of Atkinson Gates and Chanderraj. The answer was that the documents were a mistake, made by architects at Pinnacle Architectural Studio. The architects erroneously listed Built By Yvonne as the contractor.

Chanderraj's attorney, Stan Parry, said the doctor, in fact, no longer plans to build the home and did not realize that the architects had submitted the building permit application.

Atkinson Gates' business partner, Lesa McClain, offered the same answer.

Pinnacle Architectural Studio "filled out all the paperwork," McClain said. "They just have to put something on there. That doesn't mean we will be selected."

The architects did not return calls for comment.

Frequently, when a property owner has not selected a contractor, the building application lists "Owner/Builder" on the application, or simply leaves the section blank.

After the Sun's inquiries, Rhada Chanderraj, the doctor's wife, faxed a brief letter to the county department of development services.

"Please change the contractor on the above job to Radha Chanderraj-Owner/Builder," the letter said. "The plans as submitted erroneously showed 'Built By Yvonne' as the contractor."