Monday, Sept. 29, 2003 | 11:17 a.m.
Developer Billy Walters, best known for building some of Southern Nevada's most popular golf courses, regularly plays through controversy.
The latest is a proposal to replace two of three golf courses in the upscale 730-home east-side community called Stallion Mountain to build almost 1,400 homes. Since at least April, Walters and his employees have tried to win over the homeowners to his plan to develop the golf courses, which he bought in 1996.
Walters was notified earlier this year that a $36 million loan on the property would be due in February. He said the golf courses are not generating the cash flow to pay off the loan and since has proposed selling two courses to developers.
Walters has told the 730 Stallion Mountain homeowners that the alternative is bankruptcy for the golf course community and the likely browning of the greens.
He is asking the county to rezone the land so he can sell it to developers. The issue is scheduled to come up on the Clark County Commission agenda Oct. 8.
But as in other contentious issues affecting Walters and discomforted homeowners nearby his projects, the meeting could be a rancorous battle between Walters' supporters and opponents.
A group of homeowners is pledging to fight.
Dr. William Williams, a psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, is one of the homeowners who hasn't been swayed by offers of thousands in cash to support the sale.
"We will not relent in fighting the zone change," Williams said. "We bought here because of the golf courses. When I came, they told us explicitly that this area would remain unchanged until at least 2008."
That is when the community covenant keeping the golf courses as they are expires, although Walters' backers say a bankruptcy could void the covenant anyway. But those opposing the project say they could keep the community as it is for at least another five years.
"This destroys completely our quality of life," Williams said.
To go forward with the plan, Walters needs a consensus of homeowners. He says he has the support the homeowners association board and support of about 650 homeowners and proxies of 380 -- more than half.
Williams and other opponents of the plan have formed a a group that calls itself the Stallion Mountain Caucus. The caucus members say they have at least half of the homeowners on their side, and they say they also have support from the surrounding community, much of which is noticeably less affluent than the gated neighborhood at Stallion Mountain.
Williams said the group has more than 600 petition signatures, some of them from the surrounding community.
Harriette Rowe, a nurse and a member of the Stallion Mountain Caucus, argued that there "has to be an alternative plan."
"There has to be another way of doing business," she said.
Opponents say their perspective, at the core at least, is simple. They were promised three golf courses and surrounding open land when they moved in. They want to keep three golf courses and the surrounding land.
They also argue that the development of the land will hurt their property values.
Bob Thompson, a retired Air Force pilot, said homebuyers -- the last of whom moved into new houses just a year ago -- paid thousands of dollars for premium lots. Thompson said he paid $10,000 for a view of Sunrise Mountain.
"Now they want to build houses in my backyard," he said.
Walters, however, said the opponents refuse to see economic reality. He has offered thousands to residents.
He is offering from $1,000 to $2,500 to homeowners if the deal with homebuilder Pulte Homes goes through, and he is offering reduced golf club memberships to homeowners.
Without the development, there will be no golf course because it will be bankrupt, he argues.
"This is not even close," Walters said. "Anybody who's left out there who still opposes this, I don't know how you appease them."
The development plan would keep the open space and the drive down the entry way would be unaffected by the development. Walters and his lieutenants argue that most people would not notice the 200 percent increase in the number of homes.
"There's a few crazies out there," he said.
Susan Joostbernes is both a Stallion Mountain homeowner and a Walters' employee, membership director for the community's golf club.
Joostbernes argued that one golf course guaranteed for 100 years under the development deal is better than three golf courses that could be threatened.
"There's just a small group that still opposes this," Joostbernes said. "In 2008, all three golf courses could be developed and there's nothing we can do to stop that. ... Do we want to end up with one golf course or do we want to end up with none?"
The development deal also guarantees only single-story, single-family homes of comparable value to those already in the community, Joostbernes said.
Mike Luce, president of the Walters Group, the parent company of Stallion Mountain Golf Club, said the design and placement of the new homes has been carefully done to mitigate any impact on the existing homes, including the more than 370 that are directly next to the three existing golf courses.
Only five of those homes would lose golf course frontage according to the design on the table, and those five would still have grass between them and the neighboring, new homes.
"They still have the same golf course views," he said. "They still have the same mountain views."
Much of the land that is slated for development already has existing residential zoning, meaning that "without any government approvals, we could begin building tomorrow," Luce said.
Luce detailed the financial argument for the project. The Stallion Mountain Golf Club has $36 million due to creditors at the end of February.
Luce said it has become impossible to find any company willing to refinance the golf clubs, and potential buyers that the Walters' company courted also could not find financial backers.
"This property does not have the cash flow to the point that it can support that kind of debt," he said.
Luce said replacing the two golf courses also would save perhaps 250 million gallons of water a year for the local water system, a potential potent argument in a time of drought-related water restrictions throughout the region.
But Luce and the other proponents are aware that their effort to develop the property will spark resistance at the county commission meeting.
Both sides have allies in the fight. Walters, as he has in the past, is represented by the well-connected law firm Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner and Renshaw.
The developer also has the support of the Stallion Mountain homeowners association board, which in a split vote endorsed the proposal. The opponents argue that the support is neither legal nor representative of the majority of homeowners.
The Clark County Planning Commission, which advises the county commission, voted 6-0 to support the rezoning of the 424 acres.
Opposing the full project are the Clark County planning staff and the Sunrise Manor Town Advisory Board. The homeowners opposing the project say they will hire land-use attorney Garry Hayes to argue their side.
Hayes is one of the few attorneys in Clark County who regularly takes on developers in zoning disputes, and he has plenty of experience arguing the issues before the county commission and the courts.
He predicted that the battle will be loud and long Oct. 8.
"Aren't most things a big fight before the county commission?" Hayes said. "Billy Walters in particular tends to generate controversy."
Walters late last year was embroiled in another controversy that involved shifting at least some of what was once slated for a golf course to other uses. Walters had a lease with Clark County to develop a course off Warm Spring Road, on the southwest side of the valley, but wanted offices and a shopping center too. Some nearby residents loudly demanded the original land uses.
In February 2003, the Clark County Commission compromised, reducing Walters' request but permitting mixed commercial and office zoning. The deal also kept the proposal for a golf course on the table.
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