Pig farm is developer’s revenge

Rathdrum insurance agent Steve Nagel is battling city hall and his weapon of choice is pigs.

Nagel plans to retaliate against Rathdrum and the Kootenai County Commission for denying a request to rezone property he owns at the edge of town for commercial use by instead putting hundreds of pigs on the 12-acre parcel along Highway 53.

He calls the farm the “Makin’ Bacon Ranch” and chuckles each time he talks about putting a few 600-pound boars in with the sows to mate. Between the stench and the squeals of pigs mating, Nagel said, it’s hardly the welcome-to-town image Rathdrum desires.

“Now maybe when I go to negotiate with these people I’ll get a little better response,” Nagel said. “There’s a deeper impact than just sex education along the highway.”

Nagel wants to build a professional building on his county land for his insurance company and a few other businesses.

The county commission denied the request Nov. 3, mostly because Rathdrum opposed the zone change and would prefer to annex the land into the city limits so it could have sewer and water service.

Nagel doesn’t want to be in the city because he doesn’t want to pay the estimated $300,000 to extend a sewer line a half-mile and water line a mile – under the railroad tracks and Highway 53 – to the property.

He dislikes the fact that the city can comment – and ultimately sway – planning decisions in the county. He said it’s a dangerous precedent. So in protest, he plans to raise breeder hogs on the property – a use that’s already allowed in the county.

County officials argue that they have had area-of-city impact agreements with Rathdrum since the early 1990s and it only makes sense to ask for input on developments that will eventually become part of the town.

Commission Chairman Gus Johnson said the commission postponed its decision 30 days to give Nagel time to ask Rathdrum for an annexation timeline and how long it would take the city to bring sewer and water to the property.

But Nagel didn’t show up to the Nov. 3 meeting, so the council denied the request.

Johnson said the decision may have been different if Nagel had shown that Rathdrum has no intention of providing services to that area in the near future.

Nagel claims he forgot about the meeting because he was too involved in trying to get an answer from Rathdrum. He thought the commission was going to wait for him to submit new information.

He now plans to ask Rathdrum for annexation and then resubmit his request to the county if the city rejects him. He doesn’t want the land to sit vacant during the year it will take to get an answer. So he plans to make a point with the pig plan.

County and city officials doubt that Nagel will follow through with the pig-farm threat, which has become somewhat of a planning dispute cliché.

“That’s the first thing they say: ‘I’m going to put a pig farm on it,’ ” Rathdrum Mayor Brian Steele said. “I think it’s a common statement.”

County Planning Director Rand Wichman also didn’t give much credence to Nagel’s tactic.

“There could be quite a market for it,” Wichman said. “I’m not aware of any pig farms in the area. He might have found a niche.”

Nagel, a Rathdrum native, said the Makin’ Bacon Ranch is no bluff.

He said he’s already negotiating a contract to buy hogs from southern Idaho. Now he needs to improve the road so semitrucks can deliver the swine, get power from Avista and dig a well. That might take a couple of months.

As for pig-raising experience, Nagel said his dad used to raise a few hogs on the same property just a few years ago. People with knowledge of pigs have volunteered to consult on the project that Nagel compares with a horse breeding stable. He foresees not only managing his own hogs but giving area residents, who don’t have land, a place to raise their own pigs. He said it might be popular with local 4-H kids.

“I’m not going to stand back and let them stab me in the back again,” Nagel said.