You think you’ve got noisy neighbors

By Mike Trask (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

Martin Gubb should have complained sooner.

But after moving in May into his gorgeous home in Henderson's MacDonald Ranch, Gubb thought he could tough out a little annoyance just beyond his back yard.

So Gubb, who works at home, did his best to tolerate the bone-jarring noise from an industrial rock crusher grinding away from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays less than 600 feet from his house.

"I just figured this is what I bought," he said, standing on one of his second-floor patios. And that left him, literally and figuratively, between a rock and a hard place.

Finally, about a month ago, the paper company president had enough of the noise and the dirt blowing down the mountain and into his swimming pool. He called Henderson's code enforcement office.

It turns out that for the more than six months the rock crusher had been operating behind the $1 million houses at MacDonald Ranch, it didn't have a permit.

Henderson's code enforcement is handled on a complaint-driven basis. If no one calls City Hall to complain about noise, filth, bootleg rock crushers or anything else, it won't be addressed. In short, if the city doesn't hear about a problem from a resident, the problem does not exist, officially at least.

The city gets 300 complaints a month for four full-time code enforcement officers, officials said. That leaves little time to patrol the streets and look for misdeeds, city planner Scott Majewski said.

If Gubb hadn't complained, the crush ing likely would have continued unquestioned.

Now the rock crusher in question is up for a permit. Gubb figures the Planning Commission will side with the developer, not wanting to bring construction of those seven-figure houses to a, ahem, grinding halt.

He is even more frustrated that, pending that decision, the crusher remains in operation, despite lacking a permit.

"They are allowed to continue until the Planning Commission reaches a decision," Majewski confirmed.

The commission meets Thursday night.

Commissioners are not unsympathetic to Gubb's plight.

"It's really difficult when people want homes on the hill and it takes a long time to get homes on the hill," said Terry Mannion, a planning commissioner. "If you're the first one in , you're kind of in a tough spot."

Hal Faher, a project manager for Heavy Duty, the company running the crusher, could not be reached for comment. At a Henderson Planning Commission meeting this month Faher said he applied for a permit as soon as he learned he needed one.

That explanation is difficult to square, though, because Faher secured a permit for another rock crusher in a different section of MacDonald Ranch. He has applied for an extension for that one, which also is on the commission's Thursday agenda.

The crushers are being used to clear roads and lots for about 200 planned houses. Faher told commissioners that as soon as some roads are cleared the, crusher will be moved farther from residences.

"I wouldn't want to live that close to a rock crusher," Mannion acknowledged.

If, as Gubb predicts, the permit is granted, his patience will be tested for at least a year longer.

"It's terrible," he said. "I had to move my office into the home theater , and now I don't have a home theater. That rock crusher doesn't belong in a residential area."

Ironically, he used to live at another MacDonald Ranch home. But he wanted a bigger house with a panoramic view of the valley.

He got most of what he wanted. His roughly 8,000-square-foot house has a winding marble staircase, 6 1/2 bathrooms and a beautiful pool in a courtyard. Not to mention the 1,100-square-foot garage.

"It was a good lot," Gubb said as another trailer of rocks roared by. "I thought I could have a nicer view and a nicer place."

He already has the first. And in time, he'll have the second.