Prairie Project Has Eyes On Space Local Roadblocks Have Group Looking At Small Steps

Imagine driving U.S. Highway 95 through Hayden without facing a stoplight.

While the traffic stops make it safer to drive in Hayden, they’ve turned regional traffic flow into a nightmare.

That kind of conflict between local decisions and regional concerns is what prompted the formation of the Rathdrum Prairie Project a year ago. It was the region’s first major effort to place the decisions of local governments into a regional context.

Now that project, which has sought ways to responsibly develop the area’s best remaining growth corridor, has stalled.

Volunteers, including grass farmers, environmentalists and business people, are frustrated at the project’s lack of progress.

Some blame elected officials who don’t want to contribute public money to an effort that might take away some of their ability to make local decisions.

Salvaging the effort may come through baby steps.

Instead of tackling all the growth issues, elected officials and area planners now want to focus the project into a plan to preserve open space on the 100-square-mile prairie.

In the coming weeks, officials hope to pitch the open space idea to the 35-member Citizens Advisory Group, said Rand Wichman, senior planner for Kootenai County.

“This is the best direction for this group to go with this project, given the difficulties we’ve had trying to do the whole thing at one time,” Wichman said.

One goal of the project was to simplify building codes on the prairie.

Five cities bordering the prairie have staked out zones - called areas of impact - where they expect growth. Different building rules govern each of those areas - Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Hauser and Hayden.

Because all the land sits over the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, any developments without sewer hookups are limited to five-acre parcels with one septic tank.

Aerial maps show that the “five-acre rule” has carved former agriculture land into a patchwork of homes.

“It creates a checkerboard out there,” Hayden City Councilman Chris Beck said.

“It generally leaves one acre for the house and four acres of knapweed. It’s not very pretty.”

To find solutions, the Citizens Advisory Group first studied the different building codes. The project also had area cities contribute $5,000 each to pay a consultant to study the prairie.

That effort - which included $30,000 from the county - succeeded.

The next step was to double the contributions from all five cities, the county and the Panhandle Health District.

While most cities have agreed, Beck said Coeur d’Alene and the county have not.

“The money is going to have to come from somewhere,” Kootenai County Commissioner Dick Panabaker said. “Ron (Rankin) has been adamant that if funding doesn’t come from the private sector that the county is not going to be part of the second phase.”

Panabaker agrees with Rankin, who sits on the project’s executive committee.

The major cost of the project’s second phase would have been to hire a consultant, at a cost estimated at between $85,000 and $130,000, to draw up ordinances to give all the cities the same building codes.

“We agree that regional planning is necessary,” Panabaker said. “I’m not saying we don’t want to be a part of it, because we do. But we have no way of funding that.”

Given the money problems, Wichman said the citizens group could initially develop a plan for open space.

“We can probably do this without spending the big money on a consultant,” he said. “We can’t do the whole Rathdrum Prairie plan without that pile of money.

“So, this gets us started.”

The open space plan was promoted by Collin Coles, a senior planner for Post Falls.

The idea involves dedicated parks for new developments, and a coordinated, interconnected system of trails and recreational places throughout the Rathdrum Prairie.

It would require developers and planners working together to plan subdivisions’ open areas and parks so they connect to neighboring projects.

That would provide common areas for golf courses, biking and walking trails and more space to allow cities to expand irrigating sewer water - called land application.

“Sometimes big successes are built on small successes,” Coles said. “We don’t have a hands-on ability to solve every problem.”

Beck agreed that starting with open space makes sense.

“Getting your arms around transportation, building requirements, utilities and then green space is a very difficult and complicated task,” he said.

Citizen volunteer Kristy Johnson has no doubt her group can help develop the open space plan.

But she also believes the citizens committee can still tackle even loftier goals. She indicated the group was frustrated because it wanted to move faster than elected officials wanted to in order to achieve regional planning.

“They are protecting their political turf,” Johnson said. “They don’t want to be run over by the (citizens group).”

Beck, who sits on the project’s executive board on behalf of Panhandle Health, agreed.

“I think there has been some concern regarding autonomy,” Beck said. “(Officials) are afraid they are losing control of what happens in their area of impact.”

Johnson used the new Cogentrix energy power plant as an example of a project that will affect the region but was decided by a pro-growth city.

When proposed, the project was part of Rathdrum’s area of impact.

“If there had been regional planning, all city councils and planners … would be involved in the approval process,” Johnson said.

Jan Hale, who serves on the project’s steering committee and is Rathdrum’s planning administrator, said elected officials should welcome input but retain the final say.

“The Prairie Plan is not about taking away any of the decision-making process of the city,” Hale said. “It’s about developing common standards for the good of the whole county.”

Hayden’s traffic on Highway 95 is another example of what could have been avoided through regional planning, Johnson said.

“The congestion is so bad that business is suffering,” she said. “So now the rest of the people of Kootenai County get to spend an incredible amount of money to build a bypass down Huetter Road.”

But, because that area has few building constraints, state planners may find houses where they plan to build the limited-access highway, she said.

“Then all those people say, `We don’t want this highway in our back yard.’ This is why this becomes a mess,” Johnson said. “What we are doing is trying to head off a whole bunch of confrontation down the road.”

Taxpayers will ultimately pay for all the traffic, crowded schools and polluted drinking water if the prairie project fails.

“If (the project) is dissolved, it will be done by our elected officials,” Johnson said.

Panabaker doesn’t agree. “I think it will move forward. But I think it will get scaled back.”

Regardless of how the project proceeds, it will take much time and effort, Hale said.

“Sometimes it’s very, very difficult to see into the future because you are so busy looking into problems of today.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: AT ISSUE Different rules

One of the Rathdrum Prairie Project’s goals was to simplify building codes. Five cities bordering the prairie - Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Rathdrum, Hauser and Hayden - have areas of impact where they expect growth, but different building rules govern each of those areas.