Proposal Ignites Debate On Growth $20 Million Gated Subdivision Slated Near Tiny Harrison
Sixty years ago, Marrianne Jones went to first grade in a one-room schoolhouse in a field a few miles northwest of Harrison, Idaho.
By the turn of the millennium, that site could be buried under a 9-hole golf course, the centerpiece of a development which could more than double the size of her tiny lakeside town.
Developers plan to build a gated subdivision with 220 home sites along Powderhorn Bay with lots priced from $60,000 to $140,000. It would include a golf course, tennis courts and possibly a tram to ferry people from the lake to the golf course.
For some residents of not-so-wealthy Harrison, this $20 million plan inspires economic hope for an eighth-of-a-mile-long business district that all but closes in winter. But for others, it ignites fears of social decay in a town where millionaires still rub elbows with millworkers.
Either way, both sides agree the ambitious six-year project likely would alter the character of this community of 290 people.
“I’ve seen a lot of change,” the 66-year-old Jones said. “This one makes us all kind of anxious.”
County planners will consider the request in July, but much of the proposal was approved 12 years ago and never got off the ground. This time, promises landowner and developer Charles Irwin, 48, things will happen.
Irwin envisions Powderhorn Ridge as a place for well-to-do families, recreation-minded second-home owners and retirees. The 352-acre site off East Point Road would include lakefront, hillside and open field lots.
The tram is only a possibility, he said, but “it can’t hurt to dream.” The golf course would be open to the public, but the community would be protected by a card-operated electronic gate.
“Most people like the security that comes with this type of community,” he said.
While many of the homeowners likely would be part-time residents, census data predict new homes average 2.4 persons per residence - about 528 people.
“But with that there’d be a great deal of employment opportunities,” Irwin said, talking about decades of home-building.
Kootenai School District Superintendent Ron Hill said the predicted impact to his 325-student district - about 40 kids - is a lot, but it’s manageable.
“We’re going to grow anyway,” he said.
Former Kootenai County planning commissioner George LaValley said Harrison needs the new residents.
“I’ve always said it’s either grow or die,” he said. “The town needs the business. We need it at the post office, the restaurants.”
The proposal would be something of a godsend to Gerry Kirkpatrick, owner of Rose’s Cafe and Bar, who said business at the start of this year is down 20 percent from last year.
“I could stand to see a few more people on the streets and in here,” he said. “I don’t think 400 or even 500 people is enough to change Harrison for the worse.”
Not everyone agrees. Lifetime resident Glenn Addington, a retired tugboat operator, worries about losing isolation - the identity that separates Harrison from North Idaho’s other small communities.
“I’d hate to see this place settled up solid like that,” he said.
It’s the gate - and the development’s ritziness - that unnerves Jones.
She worries well-off people will draw criminals to an area with only limited crime. Also, the lifelong rancher fears new residents will crowd the roads and be impatient with farmers.
“We’re agricultural people,” she said. “Those people don’t have time for any of that.”
Gateway Resort owner Lynn Gish said that’s primarily the fears of “a fistful of old-timers” who don’t want any change at all.
LaValley said the fact that residents would be affluent wouldn’t bother most folks: “We’re not as into California-bashing as Coeur d’Alene. Besides, I think most of our move-ins want to be seen as regular folks.”
Kirkpatrick, at Rose’s, agrees.
“I’ve got eight stools at my bar and in any given day one of those could have a millionaire on it and you’d never know.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of Powderhorn Ridge development area
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