Proposal seeks to annex 160 acres more

SPIRIT LAKE – A California developer and pharmacist who helped plug Spirit Lake’s once-leaky Mill Pond is seeking to annex an additional 160 acres into city limits.

John Sempre already owns 306 acres in city limits, two-thirds of that annexed into Spirit Lake in 2001. He initially planned for a high-end residential development with 400 homes, a golf course, marina and ski hill on the west side of Spirit Lake.

His latest vision was unveiled before Spirit Lake’s City Council late last month when his attorney, Mike Ealy, came to the council seeking to annex 160 more acres.

Sempre is planning to develop 2 1/2- to 3-acre home sites – possibly some larger parcels – on the property he owns, with trails for horses and hiking. The developer and his attorney did not return calls seeking comment earlier this week.

The idea of a golf course was quashed a few years ago.

“There are so many golf courses around,” Mayor Roxy Martin said. “And with our weather, if you got four to five months of golfing here, you’d be lucky.”

The proposed annexation will go before the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission on June 3 and then the City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal.

Martin said Ealy didn’t share a timeline for the development.

She said Sempre in the years since purchasing the property has spent a great deal of money on wildlife and wetland studies and plugging the Mill Pond, which traditionally had dried up each year.

That was five years ago and the pond is still full of water, Martin said.

The mayor said she’s not concerned that there hasn’t been much progress on the development.

“He wants to be very careful what he does down there,” Martin said. “And I respect him for that.”