When housing boomed, so did park-building.

By Joe Schoenmann

Friday, July 3, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The recession has taught Las Vegas some lessons: Home prices don’t always go up. Having financing in place before you start building a multibillion-dollar resort is a good idea — to name two.

It’s also offering lessons to those responsible for the civic infrastructure — the look and walkability of neighborhoods, as well as parks and other amenities that Southern Nevada officials have worked to make a part of residential development here.

For many years those amenities were ignored by developers who didn’t want to surrender acreage for parks that they could use to build more homes. Part of the solution was the master-planned community — massive developments that incorporated parks, paths and other conveniences. Local governments require developers to fund and build the amenities as a condition of approval for projects.

The success of Summerlin and Green Valley showed the approach worked during the valley’s boom.

But officials are giving the approach a second look in light of controversy surrounding the Mountain’s Edge development in the southwest valley and what it might foreshadow about a slower-growing Las Vegas Valley.

Almost before the first homes were up, developers of Mountain’s Edge had built the $8 million Exploration Peak Park, which features an Old West town, play structures, water towers and mountain trails. When John Ritter, CEO of developer Focus Property Group, built the park, he had $4 million from homebuilders that had put money into a parks fund for each home built. His company contributed $4 million.

But this week Ritter faced 500 irate residents who wanted him to explain why additional park plans — plans they were shown when they bought their homes in Mountain’s Edge — are being scaled back.

His answer was, in short, the money isn’t there.

Few homes are being built in the master-planned community, so the parks fund isn’t growing. Public park money from anticipated Bureau of Land Management property sales is gone, too, because federal land auctions have ceased because of the economy.

County Commissioner Susan Brager, who represents the area, said the situation may force officials to rethink their bench marks for triggering park construction in light of the valley’s slower growth.

At Mountain’s Edge, the county allowed 3,200 units to be constructed before the first park had to be built. A bigger, regional park, funded largely by the proceeds of the sale of federal land, was to come after 7,000 of the development’s projected 13,500 units were built.

With shellshocked developers expected to build more judiciously in the future — perhaps 200 or 300 acres at a time, instead of the 3,500 acres of a Mountain’s Edge — the county should reexamine the timetables for developers to build parks, Brager said. “The time it now takes to reach 7,000 homes is way too long.”

At the same time, the county needs to discuss its role in future park construction, she said. “I think grants, joint ventures and naming rights could be helpful in being able to construct parks,” she said.

In early September, Brager and other members of the County Commission are expected to take up Focus Property Group’s request to scale back its park plans.

Ritter said the redesigned park plan will allow for future add-ons, but they won’t be paid for by his company.

“I don’t like to be sitting here saying this,” he says. “I didn’t like to sit there and tell those people that” at the meeting with Mountain’s Edge residents.

But the lesson to Ritter is clear.

“The days of the gold-plated park are over,” he said.