Developer Requests Rezoning To Allow Homes, Golf Course Near State Park

North Side developer Pete Rayner is asking Spokane County to rezone 425 acres along Rutter Parkway near Little Spokane River State Park to allow 85 homes and a golf course.

The property, part of Rayner’s Blue Heron Estates, stretches from near the Little Spokane River to Five Mile Prairie.

The area is zoned for general agriculture. Rayner wants to change the zoning to allow one home per five acres in some areas, and one home per two acres in other areas.

Homes will be clustered on lots ranging in size from half-acre to two acres, with open spaces and common areas throughout the development.

“We have tried to be sensitive to the area,” said Rayner. “The large lots are next to the state park, they provide a buffer between the park and the housing. The bulk of the homes are closer to the power lines,” he said.

Nine lots inside Blue Heron estates have already been sold.

“We had to make sales in five- and 10-acre parcels to hang on financially. We are hanging on by our nails waiting for water,” said Rayner.

The half-acre parcels will be served by city water, with larger lots to the north on wells.

“We are in no man’s land. We can’t get county services and the city won’t provide services.” he said.

“We are over an aquifer-sensitive area, the city cannot provide a sewer, and because of the politics of sewer treatment, we can’t put in our own sewage treatment system,” said Rayner.

Rayner said his efforts to develop Blue Heron Estates have been thwarted since 1990.

His property was originally approved for annexation to the city. Then there was a lawsuit over another development, after that the Indian Trail moratorium, now the urban growth boundaries, Rayner said.

The area is now outside the boundaries.

As proposed, the golf course will include a club house with a kitchen, restaurant, lockers and restrooms. Rayner said the project will be developed over a period of two or three years.

, DataTimes