Project opposition unites small town

GENOA - Residents of this historic Nevada community seldom agree on much - but many have put old differences aside to join a fight against a newcomer's plan for a commercial project in the center of town.

At 12,280 square feet, real estate investor Bettie Kanelos' project wouldn't amount to much in a larger city. It's about the size of two modern drug stores stacked atop one another.

But it would dwarf all other buildings on Genoa's main street and, critics say, destroy the quaint town's sense of history.

Kanelos is irate over the opposition and delays that she's encountered in trying to build an L-shaped structure that would have 10 hotel rooms and seven retail shops.

Her take on the handful of old buildings on Genoa's main street - treasured, much-photographed remnants of a town that started up in 1851: ''They're not nice-looking. They're old and junky.''

As for her persistent critics, Kanelos says bluntly, ''I don't have time for their pettiness, for putting up with crap like this. I can't believe people can do this to you.''

Kanelos, who moved to the area a few years ago from Southern California, sees her project as a way to revitalize the downtown - and avoid a big tax bite by reinvesting money made on a sale of other property.

She must break ground soon to get the tax break, and is hopeful the Douglas County Commission will give her a tentative go-ahead when the panel meets Thursday to consider the project.

After it was rejected last month by the Genoa Historic District Commission, Kanelos revised the project to create an old-style facade and change its location on the site she bought for $475,000.

But Kanelos said she won't budge on the big issue: the size of the building.

''Financially, I can't change the size,'' she says, adding that she had assurances from the start from county officials that the size would be OK.

But opponents say the proposed structure is far larger than the adjacent firehouse, which is the street's largest current building at about 8,000 square feet. The next largest structure is the old courthouse, later a school and now a museum. It's half the size of Kanelos' project.

All of which adds up to a big fight for the tiny community of about 300 residents.

''People who haven't spoken to one another in a long time are working together on this one,'' says Linda Sanfilippo, secretary of Concerned Citizens of Genoa. ''Politics makes strange bedfellows.''

The group circulated a petition against the project and got nearly 200 signatures of people who live in the immediate area - although Kanelos questions that.

''She has such a different mindset than what we need here,'' says Sanfilippo. ''Yes, she has the right to develop this property. But it would be wonderful if she would have Genoa and Genoa's history in mind.''

Sanfilippo and her husband run a bed-and-breakfast in an old home near Kanelos' property. But she said her opposition isn't based on fear of competition. She thinks her business would only improve if the project is built.

The fight is just the latest in a town that has quarreled in recent years over everything from nearby golf course developments to the operation of the community's annual fund-raiser.

It took 10 years to resolve a dispute on where to locate a post office in town.

Genoa's residents guard their historical settlement.

Now, even that has become a dispute. Genoa's claim to being the oldest permanent settlement in Nevada has faced a recent challenge from residents of Dayton, who said their community started up a month before Genoa.

Genoa and Dayton sprang up within 25 miles of each other during the California gold rush when thousands of pioneers in covered wagons streamed through. Genoa is 13 miles south of Carson City, and Dayton is 12 miles east of the Nevada capital.

As for Kanelos, she wishes she were miles away from both of them.

''I don't know that much about historical stuff, and had I known in the start what it meant, I would have never bought here.''