Thursday, March 13, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Seeing Red Rock

New players emerge in battle for Blue Diamond Hill

By Heidi Walters

A race to the top of Blue Diamond Hill between a shadowy developer and a would-be protector of Red Rock Canyon's integrity appears to have burst into a neck-and-neck final sprint.

This week, state Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, planned to introduce a bill in the state Legislature that would freeze in place existing rural zoning for 70 square miles of land in the Red Rock area, including Blue Diamond Hill.

Also this week, lobbyist John Pappageorge--who represents developer Jim Rhodes--sent Titus a courtesy e-mail saying he plans to kill her zone-freeze bill. Although the developer hasn't made any public announcements, Rhodes' name percolated into the media just a week ago as the prospective buyer of James Hardie Gypsum's land on top of Blue Diamond Hill.

Blue Diamond Hill became a hot point of contention last year when another developer, John Laing Homes, announced plans to buy the James Hardie Gypsum land on top of it and plant there a city of up to 8,400 homes plus commercial centers. People far and wide exploded with outrage. The ravine-rifted gray hill, which sits on the eastern border of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, is lovely in its own limestone-and-gypsum right despite the scars of mining. But the reason Las Vegas citizens and others across the country cried out against the proposed development is the hill's broad stature. It's a solid wall, a massive bulk that stands guard between the lights, noise and visual distraction of Las Vegas and the quiet serenity and colorful, dramatic natural beauty of Red Rock.

Laing later dropped its plans, leaving the door open for another buyer to step in. And in the pregnant lull since then, several hill-saving fronts have formed. Titus', so far, is the one that's gotten farthest. Titus' bill would lock in place the county's existing, long-term master plan zoning in the Red Rock overlay, which limits development density in that area to no more than one house per two acres, and bans commercial development.

But if Rhodes negotiates a sale with Hardie before Titus' bill goes through, then anything can happen--and it's a well-traveled fact that the Clark County Commission relishes granting zone change requests. "If you look at the record of the County Commission over time, it's certainly been known to accommodate development," Titus says.

That isn't to say all county commissioners are for big development on the hill. Hell, even some big developers aren't for big development on Blue Diamond Hill. Titus says Howard Hughes Corp., whose Summerlin development flanks Red Rock, supports the concept of her bill, as does the Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association. Tom Warden, spokesman for Howard Hughes Corporation, affirms that Hughes will support Titus' bill as long as it lives up to her concept. He says it's a natural for Hughes to be in favor of protecting Red Rock.

"It's something this company has done all along," Warden says, pointing to 1987 when Hughes let go of some of its land that originally extended up to where the visitors center now sits. "Red Rock has been part and parcel of what makes living on the west side of the valley so nice."

Titus says commissioners Rory Reid, Bruce Woodbury and Yvonne Atkinson Gates are "generally supportive" of her efforts to protect Southern Nevada's "crown jewel," Red Rock. Also, last year, outgoing commissioner Dario Herrera spawned a sensitive lands committee to develop a protocol for determining what county lands citizens want set aside for open space. A committee task force developed the Red Rock Overlay Zone Expansion to include Blue Diamond Hill. And new Commissioner Mark James, whose district includes much of the area in question, was all set to carry the expansion through the county process to fruition. For a variety of reasons (including the death of his mother), James' plans have been delayed.

Titus, meanwhile, crafted her bill. There's been some griping about her plans, including from James, who says the state has no business meddling with the county's business. But Titus says she's not trying to change county law, and that time is of the essence to get some sort of protection of the hill in place.

"I'm using their map, and their zoning," she says. "All I'm doing is locking it in. My legislation wouldn't touch on anything in the overlay zone that has to do with lighting, landscaping, ridgeline development" or other such regulations which would remain in the county's control. "And what's interesting to me is, when [James] was in the state Senate, he pushed through gaming enterprise zones in the county. But now that he's a county commissioner, he says the state shouldn't be involved in county dealings. I just think he is very hypocritical."

She's got her suspicions about James. "What concerns me is that Mark James is close to [former county commissioner] Erin Kenny," Titus says.

Kenny was supposedly running for re-election to the commission last year. But 30 minutes before the May 20 5 p.m. filing deadline, she announced she was instead running for lieutenant governor. Apparently at the ready, James stepped in that last half-hour to fill her spot on the ballot. Now, rumor has it that Kenny has been hired by Rhodes to facilitate the Blue Diamond Hill purchase. Gypsum miners say she's been seen on top of the hill with Jim Rhodes. Neither Kenny nor James returned Mercury phone calls.

James, who recently met with Rhodes (and who has told reporters he wants to meet with all sides concerned) may have yet another conflict: Before he became county commissioner, he worked for the lobbying firm Kummer Kaempfer. Pappageorge, who is lobbying for Rhodes against Titus' bill, works for Kummer Kaempfer. James did, however, resign from the firm once he was elected.

Meanwhile, on yet another front idles a plan that might have induced the Bureau of Land Management to finally take a nurturing interest in the whole hill, which not only guards the BLM-managed Red Rock Canyon but also harbors the endangered Blue Diamond cholla. The BLM manages a publicly owned part of the hill already, and was willing to take on Hardie's unmined land. But it has balked at buying outright the mined private portions. Several months ago, Mike Ford, with The Conservation Fund, was discussing with James Hardie Gypsum and the BLM a plan in which the Fund would buy, at assessed market value, some of Hardie's land plus development rights (through a conservation easement) to the rest of it.

Hardie would have been able to keep mining, reclaiming the land as it went, and future buyers would not be able to subdivide it. And the BLM would be able to buy the reclaimed lands with funds from the sale of other public lands. But the whole deal required a willing seller.

"The BLM approved, the county approved," Ford says. "I flew over to Mission Viejo to Hardie's offices and the meeting was very cordial--then boom, things changed. That must be where [Rhodes] came in."

Ford says the door is still open to Hardie to talk about the conservation easement purchase plan.

In the meantime, Titus says she just wishes all the protect-Red Rock fronts would unite. "It would be great if we could have a three-pronged approach to this whole goal--the BLM, the county and the state," she says. "I don't see them as contradictory, but complementary."

But in the end, even if Rhodes reaches the top of the hill first, perhaps it'll remain undeveloped. Observers speculate that Rhodes might just want the mine-riddled, hot-button hilltop to use as leverage to trade for BLM land elsewhere--choice, unmined, developable land, maybe along the Interstate 15 corridor where the next wave of growth is set to explode with a new airport, or maybe adjacent to Rhodes Ranch to expand that property.