But to Lewis, real estate development is second nature. She comes from a long line of developers who have helped shaped Las Vegas.

Lewis is the granddaughter of Ralph and Goldy Lewis, the founders of the Lewis Group of Cos., who for more than 50 years developed master-planned communities, residential subdivisions, apartment communities, shopping centers, office buildings and industrial parks in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah. She is the daughter of Richard Lewis, who heads the company's operations in Southern California, and the niece of Robert Lewis, who heads operations in Nevada.

Lewis Operating sold its homebuilding division, Lewis Homes, in 1999 to KB Home, which made KB the largest builder in the valley overnight. As part of a noncompete agreement, Lewis was barred from building homes in the valley. After the five years passed, Lewis didn't get back into homebuilding.

"We decided we liked the land planning and the apartments and shopping center and a little bit of industrial development," Jennifer Lewis said.

Jennifer Lewis sat down with In Business Las Vegas recently to discuss the state of the housing market and builders' concerns in a growing community.

Question: Lewis Operating Corp. is involved in many facets of commercial and residential development. Which discipline does the company focus on in Las Vegas?

Answer: Right now we're focusing on land acquisition, land sales. We don't build houses anymore, so we're more interested in doing different things with land. We're trying really hard to find an apartment site right now. We have a shopping center that we manage, an apartment, and that keeps us pretty busy. But we're trying to concentrate more on land. We've just been doing the entitlements. We'd like to do another master plan. We've done a couple of small master plans in town; we'd like to do a couple of more, we've just had trouble finding the right land.

Why has it been difficult for you and others to find the proper site for an apartment development?

I think it's difficult for two reasons. One is that the land prices have just skyrocketed and the rents haven't really gone up corresponding to how the land prices have gone up. So I think the rents are going to have to move up. What's happening is if somebody has a piece of land that will work for 18 units to the acre, some of our homebuilders can buy it and pay a lot more than an apartment user.

Then there's always the zoning issue. Apartments aren't popular with the neighbors generally.

How have the high land prices affected Lewis Operating Corp.?

Pretty much, basically from the acquisition end and you have to pass on the price to the end user. Eventually the homeowner is going to be the end guy and will suffer from the higher land prices.

Are you looking to the communities surrounding Las Vegas for land?

We're looking at a lot of opportunities; we haven't bought anything.

How have the high land prices affected members of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association?

It's the same issue, it drives up the house prices for the consumer in the end. Even if you buy land at a slightly cheaper price and then you sell those houses, in order to get the replacement land for the next round, you're still going to have to pay more. It just affects the affordability.

You recently attended a roundtable discussion about how to bring affordable housing to Southern Nevada. What do you think needs to be done to bring affordable housing to the valley?

Probably a lot of different things. Certainly we need to figure out how to control the land prices and maybe having land released from the BLM would help, specifically for affordable housing. There might be something that the cities and the county can do in terms of fees. Fees for a new house are $55,000-plus right now per house. That's a pretty high number that gets passed on to the consumer.

Was there anything discussed at the conference that you thought was a good idea?

When people understand inclusionary zoning they realize it's not maybe a good strategy. That was interesting. When you explain it, how it passes on the cost of housing to other people, it's not as popular. Just getting more land available and making sure the land is close to services.

Why is inclusionary zoning a bad idea?

To me, you're passing on the cost to the next homebuyer, you're re-allocating the costs and driving up the price for all the other buyers and you're probably pricing some of those guys out to get the first house in. There are a lot of better ideas on the table: housing trust funds, I think those are interesting. There are just a lot of other better ideas.

As president of the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association, what are you finding are the biggest concerns, beyond land, among the valley's homebuilders?

It all comes back to affordability. We need to keep housing affordable so people can buy it. The land shortage is always another one. Construction defects, there's homeowners association issues, there's a myriad of different things.

Do you think the construction-defect law has had any effect in Southern Nevada?

We think it's been a good law. We think it's helped keep housing a little bit more affordable.

What about talk that it needs to be revamped or tweaked in the next legislative session?

There probably are some minor tweaks, but in general I think it's worked out.

What issues are the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association working on or tracking?

There's hundreds of issues. There's probably five or six affordable-housing committees now, between the Governors committee, I think each city has its own legislation it's working on, there's an assembly committee. There's just a lot of that. There's a myriad of things, between the master plans, codes, there's some things that are just consistent. The affordability is probably our No. 1 priority right now.

More and more small homebuilders are leaving the market or selling out to larger companies. Do you think that is bad for the market?

I don't know if it's bad or good, so much as it's kind of the way. There's always going to be a niche for your smaller guys to come in and do some smaller pieces, and there's still some big private guys in town, but there's definitely fewer than five years ago. The bigger builders can pay more for the land, have more agility of the pricing; if they are buying sinks it's cheaper to buy 10,000 sinks than 500 sinks. There are definitely some places where it's more cost effective to be a big builder. There's always going to be a role for the smaller builder to jump in.

There has been a lot of discussion about satellite communities being part of the answer to affordable housing. Do you think people will be willing to commute to these outlying areas to buy a home?

I think for some people it will be worth it. If you work on the periphery of town, it might not be that far of a commute. I think it will help relieve the pressure a little bit, but I don't know if it is viable for someone commuting it every single day. But at the same time, people drive two hours a day in Los Angeles to go to work, and probably two hours a day in New York.

Lewis Operating Corp. does a lot of homebuilding business in California. How do you think the California market influences the Las Vegas market?

A lot of the home designs come from California, and even some of the master planning. Since we mostly deal with land, you see a lot of planning ideas originate out of California and end up here. I think some of the product is similar. Whatever happens there as their house prices go up, they're still way more expensive than here, so it brings more people out here.

Are you looking at doing any of commercial here beyond the apartments?

We have a shopping center now and we'd like to add another shopping center. We manage everything in-house and we keep good tabs on it.

Homebuilders are talking about building more dense product and more attached product in the valley. Do you think this is the wave of future housing in Las Vegas?

I think if they can control the construction-defect litigation we'll see a lot more attached housing, maybe not some of the high rise, but more mid rise, lower density than the high rise product. It's going to be part of the new wave. Not everyone wants a house with a yard.

Lewis Operating Corp. owns and manages rental homes across the valley. How has the rental market changed for single-family homes?

We have about 106, plus or minus. We own all of them and manage them. Rents have started to go up. We've been doing it for a long time. Some people are happier in a house environment than an apartment. We've kept them rented pretty well; we have a lot of them up by Nellis.

What do you think needs to be done to encourage green building standards within the industry and to have it accepted among buyers?

I think to be accepted among buyers, it's more a price decision. If it costs more, will it save buyers money in the long run. I think between the water smart and the Energy Star, I think that we're starting to build a lot greener. As we go along, I think that trajectory will rise quite a bit. Homebuyers are fairly price sensitive. As long as it makes sense to them financially and it's a good product I think they'll be happy. The homebuilders, we're fully on board. Even I think a house now compared to 10 years ago is a lot greener.

Do you think women are fairly represented (as far as top executive jobs) in the homebuilding industry here in Las Vegas?

Absolutely. I don't know if it's a misunderstanding, but when I look at people who run homebuilding companies in Southern Nevada, they have names like Leah (Bryant, KB Home), Gidget (Graham, Concordia Homes of Nevada), Mary (Connelly, William Lyon Homes), Liesel (Williams with Richmond American Homes), Patty (Shaw with Desert Wing), Irene (Porter, Southern Nevada Home Builders Association), to me, there's a lot of women in high positions in homebuilding. They didn't necessarily come from the construction background. I've had a lot of good people to look up to. And of course my grandmother, who started in homebuilding in 1955, so I've always had a role model.

What direction would you like to take Lewis Operating in the future?

I think I'd like to have some more apartments to keep track of, and I'd like to have another shopping center here. We're working on a big shopping center in Reno. We'd like to add some more shopping centers up there and apartments up there. Hopefully just keep everything moving.