Imagine having a pristine natural hillside behind your home, only to have it suddenly torn up by heavy equipment. You later find out the entire project was illegal. That's exactly what happened to some homeowners on Sunrise Mountain and they are furious.

Homeowners in the Clearview Estates neighborhood on the edge of Sunrise Mountain are complaining that not enough is being done to solve what they call a who-done-it? But county officials say that's not so. A full time investigator has been assigned to sort out this complex situation, which has left a once pristine hillside with a big scar.  

Resident Jerry Smith tells the I-Team, “It was purely scenic and natural, with a little arroyo going up through here. It was just a nice looking mountain, you know, as nice as desert mountains can look.” 

But what Smith and his neighbors now see at the corner of Los Feliz and Washington is torn up earth. ”Now, as we come around here we see — all the neighbors see this — it looks like a quarry operation that you would see out in the boonies somewhere. So all 103 neighbors in the Clearview Estates Homeowners' Association are really upset with it,” Smith said.

Smith has taken pictures of heavy equipment working here only to find out that the scope of this work was never authorized. ”I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that anybody would be so bold as to come in here and take away the mountain and leave it that way,” he said. 

But what he's most upset about is that Clark County officials have not held anybody accountable for this illegal work. “And this started in December, and we still have no corrective action taken,” said Smith.

Ron Lynn of Clark County Development Services says some permits were taken out on this site but the case is open and is being actively investigated. “We feel that the permits have been exceeded at this point, so we issued a fresh notice of violation,” Lynn told the I-Team.

Violation notices have already been filed against two limited liability companies which own the parcels involved — one called Mushland the other Sage-Sunrise. But here's where this case gets interesting.

In letters to the county — both Sage-Sunrise and Mushland say they have done nothing wrong. The county believes the work was likely done by contractor C&W Enterprises from North Las Vegas. C&W did have a Clark County Air Quality permit to work on the Sage-Sunrise property but did not have a required grading permit. 

Sage-Sunrise disputes this in a letter to the county. “None of the work performed on our property was authorized by Sage,” the letter states. Sage-Sunrise also sent the county a consultant's report, which estimates damages to its property at $325,000.

“Since that contractor has not fully followed the laws, we are going to refer part of that complaint to the Contractors Board for their disposition,” said Ron Lynn. But he also says, since there is no current life or safety hazard and all work at the site has now stopped, there's not much more the county can do.

“The frustration probably from the point of homeowners is that the actions that took place, that they are looking at — in other words the scars in the earth — still exist. They do not represent a life-safety hazard. Therefore, if they cease and desist all grading then we are done with enforcement,” Lynn said.

That's not what Jerry Smith wants to hear. ”I would like to see it put back the way it was but, you know, that's probably an impossible situation,” Smith said as he overlooked the site of the illegal work.

Development officials say the county has no power to force anybody to return land to its natural state — even if the work was illegal — unless it is a life or safety issue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.