Pact aims to limit prairie sprawl

The Kootenai County Commission approved an agreement Wednesday to jointly manage the remaining Rathdrum Prairie in partnership with the towns that surround the current farmland.

The idea is to ensure that the county along with Post Falls, Hayden and Rathdrum can grow while leaving enough prairie to separate the communities and retain their individual identities. That also will preserve some open space over the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, which provides drinking water for more than 400,000 people.

Attorney Jerry Mason, who represents the three prairie towns, said other towns and counties across the state often refuse to work together to manage growth and that only causes bad planning. He thinks this agreement is a standout.

“Everywhere people are fighting about who has what,” Mason told the commissioners. “This County Commission realized this gives us an opportunity to work together.”

Post Falls and Hayden have already approved the agreement and the Rathdrum City Council is expected to vote Tuesday. Once Rathdrum signs on, then the county and the towns will decide how to manage the growth areas that surround the prairie.

The agreement calls for a two-tiered area of city buffer zones. That means the towns and county will decide the exact boundaries for where Post Falls, Rathdrum and Hayden can eventually grow, known as the area of city impact. The individual towns would control and manage these areas. Rathdrum and Hayden would give up some of their current area of city impact while Post Falls would gain a little ground.

Post Falls is growing so quickly it has already reached its existing northern city impact boundary.

The remaining land, which would essentially be the middle of the Rathdrum Prairie, would be jointly managed by the county and the three towns. The zoning in this area, which is mostly agricultural, couldn’t be changed unless all three towns and the county agreed.

“As a landowner, I’m really looking forward to having consistent rules and regulations with the cities and the county,” said Vonnie Satchwell, who owns a lot of prairie acreage.

The next step is for the county and towns to hire a consultant to determine the best way to provide sewer services to these areas of city impact. County Planning Director Rand Wichman said the county and towns must figure out how much money each entity should contribute to the study.

The study should show if each town has the capacity to provide sewer or if a regional sewer system is a more efficient idea.

These results will help determine where the new city limits for each town should go.

Coeur d’Alene isn’t involved because only a corner of the city, at Prairie Avenue and Huetter Road, borders the Rathdrum Prairie. Coeur d’Alene cannot expand onto the prairie because Post Falls and Hayden have already moved into that area.

But Wichman said it’s possible Coeur d’Alene may participate in the sewer study.

Nobody except government officials and members of a local open space steering committee, which has been meeting for years trying to come up with this plan, attended the public hearing. All the city representatives and planners agreed this is a progressive partnership that will help provide managed growth.

The towns and county would change their laws to push homes and businesses into the city limits. That would stop the current practice of allowing five-acre housing developments on the edge of town, which planners say is sprawl that chews up too much land. The goal is to prevent the prairie from eventually looking like Spokane Valley.

“Unless we all work together nothing is going to happen,” Commission Chairman Dick Panabaker said. “We are just going to fight and time will take care of it in an inappropriate manner.”

And there isn’t much time left. Since 1990, about 10,000 acres of prairie land has been annexed into towns or subdivided. That means about 1,000 acres of prairie is converted every year. Only about 10,000 acres remains.