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Swift Development Eruption Development?

In Mount St. Helens forestlands, real estate speculators see mountain of profit

Published: February 3, 2007
Kathie Durbin, The Columbian

Today, Marbletop Retreat is 130 acres of high-elevation timber in the shadow of Mount St. Helens.

But someday, developers envision this logged-over property as the ultimate in recreational real estate, with winter solitude, wildlife galore, limitless snowmobiling terrain -- and volcano views to die for.

"Sloping to the northwest, virtually every lot will have unmatched views of Mount St. Helens a mere 3 miles away!" promises the sales brochure on Keller Williams Realty's Web site.

That's the dream. The reality? The property isn't even reachable right now. November rainstorms washed out the Forest Service roads that provide the only access.

Marbletop Retreat is one of several pending proposals that would transform remote timberland south and west of Mount St. Helens, planting expensive recreational "cabins" on land inhabited today by elk, deer and bull trout.

A land rush in Skamania County's timbered midsection and next door in Cowlitz County has raised both expectations of profit and fears of uncontrolled development.

Because neither county is required to zone its rural land under the state Growth Management Act, the usual controls don't exist.

In Skamania County, the focus is on 34,000 acres of private timberland north of Swift Reservoir and south of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Until last February, this land was wide-open for real estate speculators -- a place where large forested plots could be sliced into building lots with little government oversight, thanks to loopholes in state and county laws.

Since 2000, Skamania County has approved 131 new building lots in the Swift area. A year ago, under pressure from state and federal agencies concerned about the environmental impacts of development -- and the challenge of providing access and services to remote residences -- the county placed a moratorium on new development.

On Tuesday, Skamania County commissioners­ will decide whether to extend the moratorium for another six months. Commissioner Paul Pearce, whose district includes the Swift area, said the county has its own concerns about providing road access, transporting students to school in winter, and providing police and fire services if some of the county's new residents choose to live off the grid year-round.

That's why the county is considering zoning the area "mountain recreational," he said. "We hope that people will live there only part of the year."

Timberland for sale

In Cowlitz County, new upscale developments are sprouting at the west end of Swift Reservoir, and an application is pending to subdivide 400 acres near Speelyai Bay on Lake Merwin, about 10 miles to the southwest.

But the largest conversions are occurring on Weyerhaeuser Co. land near the town of Toutle, about 35 miles west of Mount St. Helens. Weyerhaeuser has just sold the last of 49 lots in a subdivision it calls the Silver Lakes Forest Reserve. Five-acre and 10-acre lots in the gated community come with their own forest management plans.

The company recently submitted an application to harvest another 330 acres in the Toutle area and convert the land to 33 10-acre parcels. That's a concern, says Steve Madsen of the Building Industry Association of Clark County. Madsen used to practice land use law in Cowlitz County and lived in the Toutle area. He says the area has even greater growth potential than the Swift area.

"The problem is, you can create large lots like that by deed," he said. "There's no subdivision review. There's no public process at all. And from a legal standpoint, there's nothing the county can do about it."

Gambling on land

The speculators in this new land rush include large and midsized timber companies with holdings in Skamania and Cowlitz counties.

Marbletop Retreat, for example, is a project of California-based company United Fruit Growers and Mike Baker, an Amboy logging contractor who heads Marble Mountain LLC, the company that hopes to develop the land.

The property, at an elevation of 3,400 feet, has no electricity, water, sewer service or cell phone reception. The Forest Service doesn't plow the roads, so it's snowed in from December to May. Its closeness to Mount St. Helens places it within a U.S. Geological Survey hazard zone.

Keller Williams is listing the 16 10-acre Marbletop Retreat lots at $149,000 each. Its ad suggests that each lot could be chopped into four under a future county zoning ordinance.

That's unlikely, says county planning director Karen Witherspoon. "None of the county commissioners are in favor of 2-acre parcels" so far off the grid, she said.

Real estate agent Patrick Ginn said he isn't actively marketing the property right now "because it's in such flux."

Dave Creagan, who owns Woodland-based Creagan Excavating, and Jerry Sauer, who owns a Camas equipment rental business, were among the first to see the potential of the Swift-area lands.

In the late 1990s, the two began buying property near Swift Reservoir. Some of that land was purchased from ANE Forests of Lewis River Inc., a Dutch-owned company that purchased a block of timberland from Weyerhaeuser Co. in 1999.

Creagan and Sauer now control at least three development companies: Marble Creek LLC, Swift Cove LLC and Three Rivers LLC.

They have spent "well in excess of $5.5 million" buying and clearing land in the Swift area with the expectation that they could recoup their investment by developing it, according to a letter their attorney sent to Skamania County commissioners in September.

They have threatened to sue if the county's existing moratorium or a new land use plan limits their ability to develop.

Pope Resources, the largest private landowner in the area, has notified the county that it wants the option to develop clustered housing on some of its 24,000 acres.

Arrayed against these parties are environmentalists and state fish and wildlife officials, who oppose the fragmentation of habitat and development near sensitive streams; PacifiCorp, the Portland utility that owns the Lewis River dams and reservoirs; and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the road system. Cabin owners at Northwoods and Swift Creek Estates, modest resorts near Swift Reservoir, want to protect the ambience of their rustic retreats from high-end recreational development.

Early warning

Portland attorney Richard Lonegan, who owns a small cabin at Swift Creek Estates, says county commissioners ignored his warning eight years ago that the area was ripe for land speculation.

"Developments are being created haphazardly without regard for future generations or the consequences," Lonegan wrote in 1998. The commissioners listened politely, he said, then "essentially ignored" him.

The county was anticipating growth in the area when it teamed with the Forest Service and the Federal Highway Administration several years ago to propose widening and straightening five miles of the Wind River Highway. The scenic two-lane road provides direct access from the Swift area to state Highway 14.

The county said the $8.5 million project was needed to improve safety, boost the county's economy and handle an expected tripling of recreational traffic over a period of 20 years.

But the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, an environmental group, challenged the need for the project, which is now on hold until 2009.

Satisfying no one

Faced with a flood of land division applications in the Swift area, the county last year hired a facilitator, held focus groups and developed a "vision map" for the Swift area. The map, unveiled last September, was supposed to be a starting point for a debate about the area's future. It proposed allowing a maximum of 1,013 houses in the Swift area, about triple the number that exist or have been permitted to date. It envisions housing densities ranging from one house per 5 acres to one house per 40 acres.

No one liked it. Some developers accused the county of changing the rules in the middle of the game. Some, including Creagan and Sauer, complained that they were treated unfairly in comparison with other landowners.

Mike Baker, the developer of Marbletop Retreat, predicted that development in the Swift area would build the county's tax base by capitalizing on the market for high-end recreational property.

He noted that the land around Marble Mountain was logged in the mid-1960s and the timber did not regenerate well due to its high elevation and poor soils.

"Today its appraised value is $45,000 as timberland and pays the county $500 a year in taxes," Baker said in written comments. "If allowed to be developed to its potential, it could be worth as much as $20 million, producing $180,000 in annual property tax revenue."

Baker said it was unlikely the new residents of the Swift area would demand increased county services because most would not live on their property year-round.

Lonegan disagrees.

"As the property is developed and sold to the affluent, the cry for county services will increase," he predicted. "It starts with a clamor for more police, fire and emergency medical services. There will be increased pressure for electricity, communications (such as cell towers), road building and maintenance."

Agencies concerned

The prospect of several hundred more houses in the Swift area has raised a red flag with state transportation officials, the Forest Service and the utility that manages the hydroelectric system on the Lewis River.

Forest Service road engineer Ron Freeman said his agency can't afford to maintain its road system in the Swift area even at current use levels. Its bridges were not designed to handle heavy construction equipment, he said. And it is not in the business of providing access to private homes.

PacifiCorp, which owns the three dams and reservoirs on the Lewis River, has spent years negotiating a renewal of its federal license to operate those dams. As part of a settlement agreement, it agreed to protect and enhance fish and wildlife habitat. Company spokesman Dave Kvamme said PacifiCorp would oppose any development that conflicts with those goals.

"We recognize that there are people in the community who would like to develop land for recreational purposes," he said. "We respect their desire to develop. However, we are trying to achieve a balance. Managing habitat for elk is a primary purpose of our plan."

Some of the harshest criticism has come from state and federal biologists concerned about the environmental toll development in the area could take.

The Lewis River and two of its tributaries, Muddy River and Pine Creek, meet near the Pine Creek East subdivision, Creagan and Sauer's largest development. Both the Lewis and Pine Creek harbor threatened bull trout, which require cold, clean water to survive.

Just a mile north is the Cedar Flats Research Natural Area, an area of old-growth forest that provides critical winter elk range.

Steve Manlow, then a state wildlife biologist, warned the county in 2005 that development near Pine Creek would erode stream banks, dump silt over spawning gravels and increase water temperatures. He also warned that some of the cleared cabin sites at Pine Creek East were within 1,000 feet of a bald eagle nest, and said new roads and trails had been established next to critical elk winter range.

Manlow later worked with Creagan and Sauer to develop a more acceptable wildlife habitat management plan.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took a harder line, warning that the county might have violated the federal Endangered Species Act by allowing development so close to critical habitat for bull trout and bald eagles. The agency recommended wider stream buffers and setbacks for construction at Pine Creek East and limits on off-road vehicle use.

The county approved the conversion. But under pressure from the agencies, in February 2006 commissioners imposed the moratorium on new land divisions and announced that they would adopt a comprehensive land use plan for the Swift area. That triggered a rush by timber companies and developers to get land divisions recorded under the county's existing rules.

ANE Forests of Lewis River, which owns nearly 4,000 acres in the Swift area, filed 150 short-plat applications with the county, protecting its ability to develop those lots in the future regardless of what the county decides.

More delay

The county had hoped to adopt a new Swift Subarea Plan by the end of 2006. But Pearse said commissioners are now shooting for a draft plan by mid-March.

The delay has left land speculators in limbo.

"No one can do anything," said Bill Coonrod, a Swift area landowner who spent a chunk of his retirement nest egg buying 160 acres to subdivide. "You certainly can't go to the bank and get a mortgage."

Other landowners say the county is moving too fast.

"Pope Resources wants you to know that they have a very active, successful development company working throughout the Northwest and in other countries," the company's planning consultant, Robert Thorpe, informed the county last year. Pope wants the option to "aggressively pursue" developing a portion of its land in the Swift Area into 5-acre, 2-acre or even 1-acre clustered lots, he wrote.

With the pressure to develop intensifying, what's needed in both Skamania and Cowlitz counties is comprehensive land use planning and modern zoning, Steve Madsen said.

"If they do nothing, you're going to get huge companies out there who don't give a whit about the people who buy their land."

Kathie Durbin can be reached in The Columbian's Olympia bureau at kathie.durbin@columbian.com or 360-586-2437.