COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — A lumber company is asking officials in northern Idaho’s Bonner County to rezone timberland to allow the building of a luxury golf community with 1,100 homes.
Officials with Stimson Lumber Co., based in Portland, Ore., said the 12,000 acres is in a prime location between Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint for the proposed development called Clagstone Meadows.
“A sudden city is what I call it,” Clare Marely, the county’s planning director, told The Spokesman-Review of Spokane. “It’s the largest project we’ve ever seen.”
The current economy could not support such a project but company officials want to have the zoning changed on the land to make the development possible at some future date in anticipation of the economy recovering.
Stimson Lumber has asked the county for conceptual approval of Clagstone Meadows. If the county’s planning commission gives its approval, the company plans to then seek approval for a planned-unit development that would cluster the homes on about a third of the property while leaving the rest as open space.
According to an economic analysis of the project at the Bonner County Planning Department, the project could be worth $1.5 billion when it’s completed, generate $69 million in construction wages, and produce about 200 service jobs once it’s finished.
“There’s no market for that development today,” said Andrew Miller, Stimson’s chief executive officer. “Absolutely not. But 15 years from now?”
Potentially, the land could be worth more to developers if the county approves the plan being put forward by the lumber company.
“We wouldn’t develop it ourselves,” Miller said. “That’s not our area of expertise.”
Neighbors fear that if the project ever comes to fruition it would ruin the area’s rural lifestyle.
The 12,000 acres includes wetlands and meadows. The development plan includes two 18-hole golf courses, equestrian facilities and a 150-acre lake.
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