City Council OKs equestrian park

RATHDRUM – The city of Rathdrum has opened the gate to a new equestrian-themed development.

Ground may be broken by the end of the year for the 200-acre Pleasant View Equestrian Park, said Ross Yearout, spokesman for the developer, Pleasant View Properties LLC.

“We’re moving along,” said Yearout, one of Pleasant View’s three founders.

The Rathdrum City Council approved an annexation agreement in March to bring the 200 acres on the northwest corner of Greensferry Road and Wyoming Avenue into the city limits. The council is expected to give final annexation approval this month.

The next step will be to submit the plan for the development – called a planned unit development – to the city’s planning and zoning committee and ultimately to the City Council.

The plan calls for a racetrack, show arenas, stables, a hotel, an RV park and 65 acres of housing. Sales of residential lots will help finance the roughly $50 million in equestrian facilities.

The project will be built in three phases during the next three to four years, Yearout said.

The first phase, possibly to begin this year, will include some single-family homes, multifamily housing, a commercial section and the equine performance portion of the project, including the arenas, barns and RV lot.

“We’d like to get that started as soon as we can,” Yearout said.

The racetrack – nearly a milelong dirt course with a three-quarter-mile grass loop on the inside – will be built in the second phase. That phase also will include more equine service facilities and additional housing, Yearout said.

The turf course would be the “only one I know of west of Minnesota and north of San Francisco,” said Yearout, adding that the project has gotten attention from some national horse organizations.

Racing could begin in 2009, he said. The group envisions a regional racetrack operating about 50 to 60 days a year, drawing horse owners from the Inland Northwest and surrounding states.

The final phase will include more housing, bringing the total to about 100 single-family residences and 120 multifamily units, Yearout said.

A residential development by itself at that location likely would not have been approved for annexation, city Administrator Brett Boyer said.

“This is a unique development,” Boyer said, “because of the unique nature of being involved in the equestrian activities.”

The city is requiring Pleasant View to build both the residential and commercial sections to ensure that the project doesn’t become a dense residential development.

The property is located away from other neighborhoods, which complicates providing city services, city officials said.

“There are some challenges to be met,” Rathdrum city planner Chris Riffe said. “It’s a pretty major project.”

Yearout is a former IBM employee who has worked at Spokane’s closed Playfair Race Course and raised and trained horses.

Pleasant View’s other founders are Colt Courtright, a health care economist from Vancouver, Wash., who shows horses, and Walt Wolf, a Spokane insurance agent.