Vegas battle brewing over luxury Red Rock homes

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A battle is brewing in the hills West of LasVegas, where residents say a developer's plan to build multimillion-dollar homes with commanding views of the city will cost the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation area its pristine views.

"We have had a lot of little incursions in the past, but we have never had an incursion like this," said Evan Blythin, chairman of the Red Rock Citizens Advisory Committee.

The developer, John Laing Homes, was scheduled late Wednesday to make a presentation to the advisory council - beginning a public process toward turning an 80-year-old former gypsum mining site on Blue Diamond Hill into a 3,000-acre planned community with 8,400 homes, roads, parks, shopping centers, schools and a fire station.

Dubbed "Cielo Encantado," which in English means enchanted sky, the development could bring 21,000 new residents -- a 42-fold increase over the 500 people now living in the area, a Clark County planning official said.

"The impacts are going to be tremendous," Dionicio Gordillo, a county planner overseeing the proposal, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hazel Martin, a resident of the nearby Blue Diamond community since 1955, said the project would be the final blow to Red Rock Canyon as a refuge for people escaping a city of almost 1.5 million residents just a 30-minute drive away.

"In the evenings, you can hear the donkeys braying. You can hear the horses calling to each other, and you can hear the coyotes," said Martin, 66. "You don't hear sirens or the screeching of tires, and that would all be taken away."

A Laing executive told the Review-Journal that about 70 acres of the development would be visible from the Bureau of Land Management's Red Rock National Conservation Area.

The company wants to start building in 2004 but still has to arrange with the BLM to swap 979 acres of federal land for 533 acres of private land, and get approval from the Clark County Commission, Las Vegas police and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

The private property is in the Conservation area, but is owned by James Hardie Gypsum, a mining company that has a tentative $50 million agreement to sell 2,000 acres to Laing Homes.

The BLM is considering the offer because the property is the only known habitat of a rare cactus known as the Blue Diamond cholla. Rex Wells, assistant field manager for BLM's Division of Lands, said the cholla has long been a candidate for endangered species listing, and said it could be a year before the BLM decides on the land swap.

Paul Kenner, Laing vice president, said the company wants to work out a plan that the neighboring community and people in the area will embrace.

"This is a very unique piece of property," he said.

Kenner said homes in the area would sell for $250,000 to $10 million.