County Questions Housing Proposal So Far, Developer Fails To Answer Many Queries About Plan
A plan to build 123 manufactured homes on 25 acres has generated a lot of questions by county planners but few answers from the developer.
Jim Stravens, of J.P. Stravens Planning Associates Inc., is bringing back his proposed Cloverleaf Park development, which would include manufactured homes on 25 of about 160 acres owned by Carl Staley of the Spokane Valley.
The controversial project, located one quarter mile north of state Highway 53 on Cloverleaf Road, is scheduled to go before a Kootenai County hearing examiner on April 20.
However, the project still is lacking at least three letters of approval that the county has requested, said Sandy Meehan, Kootenai County associate planner.
“It doesn’t appear that Mr. Stravens has submitted all the items he needs to get a decision from the hearing examiner,” Meehan said.
The first public hearing on the project was held Oct. 6, 1997. So many neighbors came to fight a proposed 13-acre sewage pond that a second hearing was scheduled.
But Stravens pulled the plan prior to the second meeting.
Then the plan was revised, pulled and finally put before a hearing examiner in September 1998.
In her ruling, former hearing examiner Jean DeBarbieris ordered the plan to be sent back to Stravens, saying the application was not complete and failed to show how the sewage disposal system would work.
In the latest version, Stravens has scrapped the idea of a 13-acre sewage pond. Instead, he wants to use those 13 acres as a drain field.
In a letter last July, Stravens wrote: “The design of the system will not be completed until the (planned unit development) request is approved.”
Contacted Wednesday, Stravens said his new proposed sewage system has approval from the state Division of Environmental Quality.
“We haven’t designed it yet, but they have given us conceptual approval,” Stravens said.
However, a Division of Environmental Quality letter last June indicates the agency needs to see the same “engineering report and design” that DeBarbieris had requested.
The planned 13-acre drain field would be adjacent to a concrete reservoir that supplies drinking water to most residents around Hauser Lake.
Hauser Mayor Ed Peone said he wants tests to be completed to make sure Stravens’ sewage system would not contaminate the drinking water.
“I would just like to see everything come out,” Peone said. Stravens has “never filed all the information, and it’s changed so many times.”
Other than the 13 acres designated as a drain field for wastewater, the rest of the project is labeled “Future Development.”
Asked what that future development would entail, Stravens answered, “I have no idea.”
Meehan said the county has to have a better idea what the “future development” would be.
“(Stravens) has to be exact,” Meehan said. “We don’t want to be guessing as to what his future development will be.”
Meehan also sent Stravens a letter on Jan. 10 outlining what he needs to obtain prior to going before the hearing examiner.
One requirement is a preliminary construction approval letter from the Division of Environmental Quality regarding Stravens’ proposed drain field. Other requirements are letters from the Post Falls Highway District and Lakeland School District regarding agreements on the project’s water system.
When asked in a telephone interview about meeting those requirements, Stravens hung up.
This sidebar appeared with the story:
WHAT’S NEXT
Hearing
A proposed housing development, located one quarter mile north of state Highway 53 on Cloverleaf Road, is scheduled to go before a Kootenai County hearing examiner on April 20.