Arrowpoint may get luxury links

The weathered barn boards that were once the backbone of the Gozzer family farm may get new life as developers plan to transform 700 acres on the hillside above Arrowpoint into the area’s second exclusive residential golf community.

Even though the vacant homestead would be demolished so a renowned golf course architect can craft an 18-hole course amid the rock outcroppings, timber and natural ponds, the barn boards would be used to set the tone of the “farm-inspired” design.

Discovery Land Company, based in San Francisco, recently submitted plans for Charbonneau Golf and Lake Club. The name is tentative, as are many of the specifics for the $100 million project that would overlook Lake Coeur d’Alene. Yet Andy Holloran, Discovery’s representative, is very sure about how Discovery wants the golf course and 375 high-end homes and condos to fit in with the rural area east of Highway 97.

“The last thing we want to do is really negatively affect how (the neighbors) live,” Holloran said Wednesday while unveiling the plans to reporters. “We want to be sensitive to these folks.”

Charbonneau also would include the current Arrowpoint Bar and Grill and the 82-slip marina, which would remain open to the general public.

The land is owned by Fortress LLC, a Canadian-based company that has ties to the Arrowpoint Condominiums. Fortress’s Coeur d’Alene attorney, Bob Fasnacht, said the condominiums are separate from the proposed Charbonneau golf community, which the developers compare to Black Rock – the recently opened luxurious private gated-community and golf course on the west end of the lake at Rockford Bay. Discovery will eventually buy the property from Fortress.

Like Black Rock, Charbonneau members would have to buy one of the various styles of residences ranging from condos and cabin-style homes on quarter-acre lots to grander homes on up to three acres. The residents would then have to buy a membership to the championship golf course designed by Tom Fazio. The lots would start at “$200,000 to who knows,” said Holloran, who works in Discovery’s Arizona office.

“It’s very similar,” Holloran said comparing the project to Black Rock. “It’s not a competing but more of a complimentary project. People will look at both of these as options.”

And the folks Charbonneau will likely attract are out-of-area people looking for a second home. But Holloran said Charbonneau also is geared toward families with children, and the project would include a Kids Camp where members’ children and grandchildren could fish, swim and recreate.

The company is interested in Coeur d’Alene because of its outdoor recreation opportunities. Discovery has about a dozen other golf communities in regions such as Hawaii, California and North Carolina. One of its newest resorts is Iron Horse in Whitefish, Mont.

“Coeur d’Alene is ideal not only for golf but hiking, biking, fishing and all the water sports,” Holloran said.

This isn’t the first time a golf course has been proposed for John Gozzer’s farm, which at one time supported cattle and hayfields on the bluff 300 feet above the lake.

Local developer Roger Stewart proposed in 1997 to build a 183-acre Arrow Point Resort golf course next to Gozzer’s property. The failed project was seen as a way to attract tourists and sell more condos in the lakeside Arrowpoint resort.

At the time, some neighbors were concerned about putting more traffic on the narrow and winding highway, as well as fertilizer and runoff from the course in the lake, affecting water quality.

Many of those worries still remain, even though it’s a new project.

The Kootenai County planning department has yet to schedule a public hearing on Discovery’s proposal and Planning Director Rand Wichman said it won’t be until this winter.

Charbonneau would get its drinking water from Lake Coeur d’Alene and then treat it at its own water facility. The property comes with adequate water rights, Fasnacht said. Each home would have its own septic system. The waste would then be pumped to an on-site wastewater treatment facility. From there it would go to lagoons and natural ponds on the property, where the treated wastewater would be used to irrigate the golf course and green spaces.

Fortress also is asking to rezone the Arrowpoint Bar and Grill and the marina from restricted residential to commercial. Wichman said the marina is currently violating county laws because construction of the marina’s office building was never permitted and its use isn’t allowed in the restricted rural area. Even if the zone change is granted, Wichman said Fortress would still have to amend the current planned unit development.

Some neighbors worried about a private golf course earlier this year when Fortress asked the county to change the zoning on 227 acres of the land.

The county in May agreed to change the zoning from agricultural to rural. The county doesn’t allow housing developments in agricultural areas but the rural designation allows the company to build one home per five acres. Because Discovery is proposing a planned unit development, it can cluster together the homes and condos for higher density in some areas while leaving more open space in others.

In February, Fasnacht told county staff that his client had no specific building plans for the land and no current plans for a golf course after neighbors voiced concerns about water and septic issues and traffic on state Highway 97.

Yet Wednesday, Holloran said Discovery has been working on the golf course plans for about a year, and that it has worked to try to alleviate neighbors’ worries.

Dennis and Terese Smith, who have adjoining property, didn’t return phone calls Wednesday but wrote two letters to the County Commission regarding the zone change. They were unhappy that Fortress wasn’t being straightforward about its plans for the property and feared Fortress would “go back to Canada with a pocket full of cash and leave the adjacent property owners with a messy development, higher taxes and less desirable property.”

Steven Anderson, who owns a business on the east side of the lake, supported the zone change and wrote the commission “that this development would be a positive impact to me and my family and the people that I employ.”