Growth Encroaches On Rural Areas Residents Trying To Escape Urban Life Know Value Of Land To Developers And Tax Bases

Marilyn and Bill Steinpreis cut a road up into the mountains south of Post Falls in 1971 so they could live far from the madding crowd.

“We thought Post Falls was growing too fast,” said Marilyn, a North Idaho native. Twenty-four years later, the five acres they left behind are covered with homes. And the Steinpreises are aghast to find themselves again fighting the advance of the city limits, though they are seven rugged miles from Post Falls.

They are willing to fight because of the cost of suburbanization - city-style claustrophobia, higher fire danger, more taxes, less freedom, less wildlife, and strains on water and sewer services.

They expect to eventually lose the war.

The Steinpreises and others who live south of the Spokane River beat back Post Falls’ attempt to include this slice of the county into its growth plans in 1994. But this land is too valuable, both to developers who want to subdivide and city governments that want to expand their tax base, Marilyn said.

“It’s sad … for anybody who comes out here and builds from the ground up,” she added. “Part of your soul is here.”

The Coeur d’Alene City Council’s recent decision to annex 40 acres of Blackwell Island is a strong signal of that advancing rural demise. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a continuous fight from here on in,” Steinpreis said.

That’s because the Blackwell Island annexation pushes the city limits - and water and sewer services - across the river. Suddenly, it’s more feasible to turn hillsides, forests and pastures into ranchettes and residential developments. People south of the river fear that 10 or 15 years from now, they will have either a Coeur d’Alene or a Post Falls address instead of peace and quiet, lower taxes and the option of keeping horses.

They even fight the construction of bridges across the Spokane River because they figure these crossings will become convenient platforms for bringing water and sewer lines.

Strangers not welcome

This is no wilderness. From Blackwell Island on the east to the Idaho-Washington line on the west, the landscape is dotted with bungalows, a handful of dense housing clusters, and growing numbers of massive new homes on 10-acre parcels.

Then there are the more isolated places such as Pleasant View, where the Steinpreises live. Many sport “Private Drive,” “Keep Out” and “No Trespassing, Survivors Will be Shot” signs. Strangers are no more welcome than the expanding cities.

Homesteaders once dotted the spectacular mist-covered hillsides that rise outside the Steinpreis’ picture windows. Families from Kentucky and Tennessee sidled up to the prolific springs, and survived by planting small orchards and raising a cow or two.

Some made moonshine and sold it to the troops at Fort Sherman in Coeur d’Alene, Bill Steinpreis said. They hid their whiskey jugs in ant hills when federal agents came snooping.

By the mid-1930s, most had drifted away. People started returning a decade ago.

“People want to live in the country in North Idaho and most are content with what they find,” Bill Steinpreis said. “But some want to bring the city.”

That’s where the trouble begins.

“I moved out here to get away from” downtown, said Chuck Ricciardi, who is building his own home two miles from Coeur d’Alene. “I can’t believe you are bringing up the prospect” of Coeur d’Alene moving south. “I can’t even get a pizza delivered out here.”

Even so, he is ambivalent about the advance of suburbia. It will allow him to sell a lot from one end of his property, reducing his debt.

Growth might bring another road along the south side of the river, between Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls. That would relieve the traffic on Ricciardi’s road.

Paying for growth

Annexed or not, growth south of the river poses problems. “More people means you increase the potential for fires,” said Capt. John Ryan, of the Post Falls Fire District.

Firefighters worry that those will be bigger blazes because it takes longer to get fire trucks to the rural residences. In addition, many people try to blend their ranchettes into the trees, increasing the fuel load, increasing the potential for a larger calamity, such as the fires that scorched Kootenai and Spokane counties a few years ago.

Ryan figures the Post Falls district will need to add 14 paid firefighters and two fire stations in the next six years alone. Simultaneously, anti-tax groups are fighting the sort of spending increases that are needed to fund that expansion.

Growth in the outback also means school buses have to make longer runs, there are more roads to maintain, and police travel farther to respond to more calls. A few argue that those factors, plus topography and a cooling real estate market, will slow growth.

Coeur d’Alene is reluctant to annex steeper areas, where it’s more difficult to provide utilities and plow roads, City Planner Dave Yadon said. The council recently refused to annex Syringa Heights, immediately east of the city, for those reasons, he said. It is easier to annex the flatter ground and there’s plenty for Coeur d’Alene to build on before it’s essential to go south.

That doesn’t mean Blackwell Hill or other rolling territory will never be annexed. “It raises another hurdle that the developer has to get over,” Yadon said.

The City Council will probably listen to any application for annexation, he said. Ultimately the City Council will determine what happens south of the river.

“My best guess is there’s going to be changes out there, but I don’t think it’s going to be wall-to-wall houses,” Yadon said.

Making the numbers work

There is little doubt Ricciardi will be absorbed by Coeur d’Alene’s expansion. His five acres are part of the city’s area of impact.

Developers with sizable parcels are lined up to ask for annexation as soon as Blackwell Island is officially part of the city.

Coeur d’Alene is beginning to study what sort of sewage treatment plant it will take to handle the new housing south of the river. Deciding whether to extend sewer lines depends upon the density of development, city officials said.

If growth is limited to one home every 10 acres, it’s not cost-effective to pick up the sewage. Once you hit three to five homes an acre, it makes more make economic sense to offer city sewer, said Sid Fredrickson, Coeur d’Alene’s wastewater chief.

The urban conversion will be rapid, predicts Gertie Hanson, who lives on land her grandfather homesteaded on Blackwell Hill.

“The city said don’t worry, you won’t be annexed for 15 to 20 years,” Hanson said. “Within six months, Blackwell Island applied for annexation.” Moreover, county residents have no sway over city government.

Some planners agree that the Blackwell development paves the way for dramatic change. Annexation by the city of Coeur d’Alene or Post Falls could mean zoning that allows for more housing.

Coupled with the availability of city utilities, “it’s going to put in density that won’t quit,” said Larry Collier, a Kootenai County planner.

Not all of the changes are bad. For example, people will send their sewage to city treatment plants instead of flushing it to septic leach fields, Collier noted.

Whether it’s better fire protection or sewer hookups, rural folk aren’t persuaded. If septic systems are a problem, that’s a reason to limit growth, not an excuse to incorporate larger portions of the country into the city, Marilyn Steinpreis said.

Post Falls was out recruiting Micron Technologies to build a computer chip plant nearby, though it has water supply and sewage capacity problems, they note.

“They have so many problems on the other side of the river they need to take care of first,” Marilyn Steinpreis said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Graphic: South of the river