Vance, 58, delivered mail in Las Vegas for 18 years before fleeing to a more wholesome place to raise her young grandsons. In White Hills, their household is off the grid -- they get their electricity from a propane generator and have their water trucked in. Her husband visits on the weekends from his job in the city, and her little boys have the freedom to run and hike and ride their ATVs with six-foot flags on the back so she can spot them over the cactuses. She can't bear the idea that it's all about to change.
"I'm selling out," she grumbled. "It's going to be another Pahrump" -- a tiny Nevada town not far from Las Vegas that grew from 10,000 to 30,000 over the past decade -- "and that's a mess!"
Developers are buying up land in White Hills, Ariz., which will be a 40-minute drive from Las Vegas when a highway bypass is finished in 2008.
(Amy Argetsinger -- The Washington Post)
|
|
The state chapter of the Sierra Club opposed the bypass for similar reasons. "Whenever you build roads, you usually end up driving development," said outreach director Sandy Bahr, who bemoaned the diminishing of Arizona's wide-open spaces.
"If someone just came in and bulldozed a bunch of large trees, just put in acre after acre of tile-roof houses, there would be generally a greater sense of outrage," she said. "There's great value in these desert areas from an ecological perspective."
In fact, a number of hurdles await developers with their eye on the White Hills area. They still must obtain a number of state and local permits. Some own land that is hemmed in by federal properties that they will have to persuade the Bureau of Land Management to swap or sell.
Not surprisingly, the biggest obstacle will be water. Mohave County officials say they will require developers to demonstrate they can tap into a 100-year supply of water for whatever housing they build. They also raise concerns about how to provide services such as police and fire protection to a booming but remote population. "All these people are going off the page," said County Manager Ron Walker. "My question is: How do I fund this?"
The region's few businesspeople, though, applaud the imminent changes. "This area is so depressed," said John McNeely, owner of Sheps Miners Inn in Chloride, the only hotel on the 80-mile stretch from the dam to Kingman, Ariz. "It will help the tax base."
And many White Hills settlers have had their heads turned by the phenomenal growth of their land prices. Acre-and-a-quarter lots that sold for $2,000 or $3,000 just a few years ago are now moving for $15,000; signs promising "lots for sale" line both the highways and the unpaved county roads.
Some feel as if it's already starting to get pretty crowded. "I used to go out in the yard in my underwear," said Tom Lusk, a longtime resident who works for a local developer. "I can't anymore. I got neighbors."
Of course, that's been Pat Kwast's impression for more than 22 years now -- practically ever since she moved to the desert. "They cluttered it up with houses," said Kwast, a cook at Rosie's Den on U.S. 93.
She's not fond of the changes but says she'll weather them, maybe get to make some jokes at the "city slickers" she sees plopping down $80,000 for a little house.
"Sweetheart, it's progress," she said with a sigh, taking a break at the counter. "Things change -- that's the energy of everything. Everybody knows you can't stop progress."
