Lake project faces new delay

Thursday’s public hearing for a proposed French-themed golf retreat on the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene has been postponed again, this time because neighbors were given incorrect information in notices of the meeting.

This is the third time the hearing for Chateau de Loire has been rescheduled from its original April date. Now a Kootenai County hearing examiner will hold the hearing Aug. 29.

Las Vegas-based Kirk-Hughes Development was unsuccessful in an informal meeting last week asking 1st District Court Judge John Luster to force Thursday’s hearing.

“It was faster for us to go to hearing (in August) than it was to wait for the judge to hear it,” project manager Gary Young said.

This is the second time the company has asked Luster to intervene in the rescheduling.

The company asked for the initial postponement in April, saying it needed more time to address concerns raised by government agencies, including the Idaho Transportation Department, and give other agencies such as the state Department of Environmental Quality time to comment. The public hearing was scheduled for May.

Then the county postponed the hearing to give the newly hired planning director time to take charge.

Kirk-Hughes Development requested an emergency court hearing at that time, alleging the county broke a mediated agreement over the development schedule by postponing the May hearing until July.

The proposed 18-hole exclusive golf course and 500 homes is on the fast track as part of the mediated agreement that was reached after the company appealed the county commission’s July 2006 denial of the golf retreat project.

“This just means another monthlong delay,” Young said.

Kirk-Hughes Development sent hearing notices to neighbors that included the wrong deadline for written comments, listing April 9 instead of July 9. The company also inadvertently left one neighbor off the list of property owners within 300 feet of the proposed development overlooking Moscow Bay.

The county attributed the error to Kirk-Hughes Development and said it has no record of the company’s employee picking up the notice with the incorrect date, planner Jay Lockhart said.

Owner Geraldine Kirk-Hughes alleges in two letters to the county dated June 26 and 27 that the county provided the incorrect information.

She wrote that either way it was a “harmless error” and that neighboring owners are “intelligent enough to know that the April 9 date could not apply since it has come and gone.”

By the time everything was corrected, it was too late to provide proper notice for Thursday’s hearing, Lockhart said.

After the last delay, Kirk-Hughes Development alleged that it would cost an extra $135,000 in expenses ranging from engineering services to a $25,000 forfeited consulting fee. Kirk-Hughes contends the latest postponement will cause more financial losses for the company.

In a July 1 letter, Kirk-Hughes wrote that the company has jumped through “unreasonable hoops” and has been required to do more than any other developer in the history of the county.

“Rather than yielding to the County’s folly, KHD continued on, fighting what has become an endless and unwarranted battle.”

County Attorney John Cafferty wasn’t available for comment.