Airport ruling favors property owners

After spending nearly $30 million in an attempt to condemn two mobile home parks in the flight path of McCarran International Airport, Clark County should return the property to the owners and pay them $2.7 million, a district judge said Monday.

The heirs of Las Vegas pioneer Maxwell Kelch could keep the $13.8 million Clark County has already paid for the land and the county should pay another $180,000 per month until the Tropicana Avenue land is cleared of vacated mobile homes and the property is returned to the owners, District Judge Sally Loehrer proposed.

Loehrer gave the county until this afternoon to submit a brief stating its preference. A final hearing is scheduled for Sept. 10.

"Nothing is final. The judge gave us an opportunity to submit our own proposal," airport spokeswoman Debbie Millett said.

The county moved three years ago to take over the 30 acres across Tropicana Avenue from the airport because the land was in the glide path of the new Runway 19. Federal Aviation Administration regulations require the county control development on parcels that are in the airport's glide path.

The county spent about $15 million to relocate more than 300 tenants from the Treasure Lodge and Las Vegas mobile home parks. That figure was so high in part because the county had to build a new mobile home park off Las Vegas Boulevard south of the airport to facilitate the move.

The county then proposed turning the land over to the J.A. Tiberti Co. for development into a golf course, condominium and convention resort. A golf course is an acceptable use by FAA rules for land in the glide path of a runway. The buildings were to be placed at the edges of the property.

Attorneys for the landowners -- who include former state Republican Party Chairwoman Marilyn Gubler -- sued saying that the condemnation was a back-door and perhaps fraudulent redevelopment scheme.

The landowners said they should have been given the right to make that deal -- or any other deal -- directly with a developer, or they should have been given a chance to develop the land themselves according to the FAA standards.

Rather than fight the lawsuit, the county Department of Aviation abandoned the condemnation action and the development plan.

County officials thought that the decision to give back the land would put millions of dollars back into public bank accounts. But three years of litigation took its toll.

The county had paid the property owners $13.8 million, and once the eminent domain proceedings ended, the owners were to return that plus interest.

But in the meantime the owners had won a $7.2 million judgment from a District Court jury to compensate them for the business value of the land and the mobile home parks.

Loehrer ruled on Aug. 16 that the county also had to pay the landowners another $7.2 million in lost rents for the more than three years since the county seized the land.

Interest, costs and attorneys fees added more than $2 million, for a total the county owed the landowners of almost $16.5 million. Once the landowners' payment to the county was subtracted, that left the landowners due $2.7 million, Loehrer ruled.

The owners had claimed the value of the land was closer to $24 million. Had the county not abandoned the eminent domain, a jury would have decided the actual value after a trial.

While the owners of the mobile home parks on Tropicana Avenue didn't dispute the need to close the parks because of the new runway, the owners' attorney had alleged in court documents that Clark County took the land unnecessarily.

"What was once a fairly typical eminent domain case has now effectively become a redevelopment plan that benefits a private party," attorney Terry Coffing alleged in court documents.

He added that "the county is no longer using its sovereign might for the public good. The county is now using its eminent domain powers to take the property and redevelop it as a 750-room time-share condominium with a convention center and 300-room hotel." Sun reporter

Adrienne Packer contributed to this story.

archive