Neighbors protest Lost Creek proposal

Neighbors in the Hidden Valley area west of Rathdrum don’t like the idea of building 64 homes in the rural area much better than when another developer asked to put 184 homes on the same 260 acres.

They gathered Thursday to tell a Kootenai County hearing examiner that the proposed Lost Creek Estates would harm the aquifer, increase traffic and basically ruin their rural lifestyle.

“I love the area because of what it is, not what it’s turning into,” Dave Kalanick said.

Local real estate agent Chuck Hughes is proposing to put 64 homes, with price tags starting at $300,000, on the treed acreage that straddles Lost Creek. The property is classified a sensitive recharge area for the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, which is the sole source of drinking water for more than 400,000 people.

The homes would each have individual septic tanks and the drinking water would come from a community system maintained by the proposed homeowners association.

Norman and Tracy Waldo of Post Falls recently bought the property from Idaho Forest Industries.

Representatives for Waldo reiterated that this project is strikingly different from the 184 homes and 10 million gallon sewage lagoon IFI originally proposed. The Kootenai County Commission unanimously denied the IFI request in 2002. At the time, more than 150 neighbors argued the subdivision would ruin their rural lifestyle and potentially pollute the aquifer.

“We feel like we’ve come up with a plan for this project that represents responsible growth,” Hughes said. “That’s key to what everyone is looking at in the area.”

About 25 people attended the hearing, most of whom opposed Lost Creek Estates.

The homes would sit on lots ranging from less than an acre to 5.76 acres. Initially, Hughes wanted all the homes on lots smaller than 2 acres but reconfigured the design plan in June after Panhandle Health District raised concerns about septic systems over the aquifer. The district requires all homes with septic systems that sit over the aquifer to be on at least five acres.

Now two of the lots in the southeast corner, which is directly over the aquifer, would be on at least five acres.

About 160 acres of the land, including the creek and wetlands, would be left as open space. It would include about four miles of pedestrian trails, accessible only to Lost Creek Estate homeowners. The developers said they were willing to put that land in a conservation easement to guarantee it is never developed.

Some neighbors said that when Waldo and Hughes met with them in the last months that they said the open space would be available for public use and that horse owners could continue to use the trails.

Perhaps the largest concern was about the new homes’ impact on the aquifer. Lost Creek runs through the property before disappearing into the aquifer just north of Highway 53. Neighbors were leery that the developer hadn’t presented a wetland study.

One neighbor said that the entire area, not just Lost Creek, is a watershed that drains into the aquifer. He questioned what would happen to the septic tanks in years of high water. He said it would only take one flood to wipe out the septic tanks and pollute the aquifer.

There were also concerns about increased traffic on Idaho Road and Winch Avenue, which has a gravel surface.

The hearing examiner will make a recommendation to the Kootenai County Commission within the next two weeks. The commission will make a final decision on the proposed project.