Towns want little sprawl on the prairie – Homes on the range – The turf battle is over.

Post Falls, Hayden, Rathdrum and Kootenai County officials know that if they are to prevent the Rathdrum Prairie from looking like Spokane and Spokane Valley they must work together.

Erica Curless
Staff writer

The county and the towns are expected to sign a formal agreement by year’s end to come up with ways to jointly manage the remaining prairie land. Coeur d’Alene isn’t involved because it doesn’t border the prairie.

"We’ve been dancing around the subject," Kootenai County Planning Director Rand Wichman said. "It’s time to put some of this into action."

For nearly five years the Rathdrum Prairie Executive Committee has mulled over ideas for how to save some of the 100 square miles of prairie that soon will fill with homes and businesses on large lots.

Until now, a formal commitment on preserving the prairie has been lacking.

Wichman and the cities’ planners got tired of the talk and wrote an October letter, asking the county commissioners and mayors to get moving.

The towns and county agreed.

"It makes good sense to do it like this," Commissioner Dick Panabaker said. "It’s the first time all the cities and the counties have bought into the concept."

Agreeing to work together is only the first step. Now the cities and county must approve specific ways to ensure the towns can grow while leaving enough prairie to separate the communities and retain their individual identities.

Wichman said the first thing the county and towns must consider is exactly where the towns can grow. The populations of Post Falls, Rathdrum and Hayden are exploding and people are looking to build homes and businesses on the prairie, which is the easiest land to develop in the county.

One likely scenario is a two-tiered area of city buffer zones.

The first zone would include land that’s about a half-mile from the towns’ existing city limits. The second zone would be about a half-mile from the first buffer’s boundary.

The towns and county would change their laws to push homes and businesses into the first buffer zone, helping prevent development on land in the second zone.

That means stopping the current practice of allowing five-acre housing developments on the edge of town.

"That chews up a lot of county in a big hurry and that’s what sprawl is all about," Wichman said. "It’s to be able to leave something out there so we don’t have one city that runs into the next without being able to differentiate."

If that practice continues, Post Falls Community Development Director Gary Young said, the Rathdrum Prairie will soon look like Spokane and the Spokane Valley.

"All you need to do is look across the border," he said.

Since 1990, about 10,000 acres of prairie land has been annexed into cities or subdivided. That means about 1,000 acres of prairie is converted every year. Only about 10,000 acres of open land remains.

Once these buffers are established, planners say the next move is adopting a cooperative wastewater management plan.

City and county planners agree the state and federal government probably won’t continue to allow towns to dump treated sewage in the Spokane River.

The best alternative, they say, is buying prairie land that can be irrigated with treated wastewater. Young said the entities would need a couple thousand acres for wastewater application. And that’s land that could double as farmland or for recreational use.

It’s common practice in California to use common areas, such as parks, for wastewater irrigation, Young said.

Rathdrum already owns about 300 acres on the prairie. The town bought the land as part of a wastewater plan.

But buying land or development rights takes money.

Planners have many ideas for how to raise cash, from bond elections and a local option tax to asking property owners to put some of their tax money toward land conservation.

Rathdrum Planning Director Robert Brock said grants are even a possibility.

"It’s a great idea but I don’t know how they are going to do it," Hayden Mayor Ron McIntire said. "It looks to me like it’s going to cost someone a lot of money."

Yet, he said, it’s worth a try.

McIntire and other officials from the cities and county agree a lot more research is needed. That’s why the executive committee is hiring a part-time open space coordinator.

Through surveys and workshops in the last two years, residents have overwhelmingly agreed it’s a good idea to preserve some green space, Brock said.

"Now we need to determine if it’s politically acceptable," Brock said.

•Staff writer Erica Curless can be reached at (208) 765-7137 or by e-mail at [email protected].

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