Rural lifestyle can be saved, developer says

Don’t give up hope, developer Jim Frank said Monday to Otis Orchards residents who don’t want their semirural area developed.

Frank told about 65 people who gathered in a muggy, poorly air-conditioned meeting room at the Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District office that several powerful factors suggest Otis Orchards is primed for urban development in the future.

Otis Orchards has good roads, a library, a fire station and a water district with “enormous water rights,” Frank told those who want him and other developers to stay away.

Nevertheless, Frank said, development pressure “can be overcome.”

“You do have a voice,” he said. “You have very legitimate issues to raise.”

Frank called Monday’s meeting to persuade Otis Orchards residents that he doesn’t plan to develop their area, even though it is included in a district that will provide tax support for his River District commercial and residential project at Liberty Lake. At least a couple of Otis Orchards residents were on Frank’s side, but most at the meeting wanted him to stay out of their area.

About 300 acres of the 1,200-acre tax district is on the north bank of the Spokane River while Frank’s development is confined to some 700 acres on the south bank.

Most of the undeveloped land on both sides of the river is owned by Centennial Properties, a subsidiary of Cowles Co., which also owns The Spokesman-Review.

When a woman in the crowd asked who owns the north bank land, there was a chorus of “Cowles” around the room.

“Betsy Cowles?” the woman asked rhetorically. “That answers a lot.”

Betsy Cowles is chairwoman of Cowles Co.

Frank’s Greenstone Corp. and Centennial Properties have teamed up as River Crossing LLC, a joint venture in which Centennial Properties will sell land that Frank will develop. But Frank said he has no plan to develop Centennial Properties’ north bank land.

No representative of Centennial Properties spoke, but consultant Wayne Frost, who used to work for Inland Empire Paper Co., another Cowles Co. subsidiary, said part of the north bank land belonged to the paper company for many years and part was purchased from the grass-seed growing Jacklin family about five years ago.

“Say what you will about the Cowles family,” Frank said. “But they donated almost all of the land for the Centennial Trail in the Liberty Lake area.”

Linda Murphy didn’t want any more recreational development of the riverbank. She said she wants her children to “have a riverbank that looks normal.”

Wanda Bruce agreed: “Why does everything have to be destroyed that’s good? Why don’t you just use the taxes to make your city (Liberty Lake) better? Why do you have to worry about growth?”

But, Tisha Thelen countered, “where do our kids live?”

Bruce and others were pessimistic about keeping Otis Orchards rural, but Frank urged them to get together with Cindy Marshall, who put out fliers about Monday’s meeting and wants to preserve Otis Orchards for “gentleman farmers” like herself.

“This is not a done deal,” Marshall proclaimed at the meeting. “It is only a done deal if we sit complacent.”

The crucial decision is whether Otis Orchards is placed in an “urban growth area” without which state law prohibits urban development. Frank noted that the Liberty Lake City Council recently voted not to seek an expansion of the city’s urban growth area.

County Commissioner Todd Mielke said the county is reviewing its comprehensive land-use plan, a process that may take 1 ½ years to complete.

Such reviews are supposed to occur every five years, so Otis Orchards residents will have to be on their toes for years to come, Frank said.

He advised development critics to consider landowners and developers as they plan their strategy.

“You have to find answers for everybody, not just yourselves,” he counseled.