Letter: Homes on ridgelines ruin the scenery

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

I wonder if anything is sacred anymore.

I recently received a neighborhood meeting notice from the developer of a parcel of land high in the hills to the south of Horizon Ridge adjacent to my community in Henderson. It was an invitation to an informational meeting to explain why the developer is requesting waivers from the city to allow development on a sensitive ridgeline without the required 100-foot setback and to allow for 28 residential dwelling units, where 13 were previously approved.

I wonder why laws, rules and restrictions are made in the first place if it is possible to obtain a waiver that excuses one from abiding by those rules. I do not understand it.

I am personally disappointed by the efforts to develop the sensitive ridgelines. Perhaps it is incongruous to treasure the majesty of the mountains that surround the neon hustle in their shadows, but I and many others do. They balance our spirit.

I recall the claustrophobic landscape of houses built wall-to-wall up to the sky viewed from the freeway near San Francisco - and shudder with disappointment in my soul as we approach St. George, Utah, the bluffs of which are topped with houses that turn the grandeur of nature upside down.

What will be left when we have bought and built on it all? How will we go home at the end of our day and know that we are part of something so much larger than the flashing illusions of Las Vegas? And when it is over, will we wonder why the people of the valley did not find a way to say no to waiver after waiver?

Susan Davis, Henderson