The future of a 600-plus home subdivision proposed in McCall is murky after the developer’s request for sewer service was denied Wednesday by the Payette Lakes Recreational Water and Sewer District.
The denial means that 90 of the 158 acres on which Pine Creek Ranch is proposed will not be within the sewer district, rendering any homes built on the land ineligible to connect to the sewer system serving the City of McCall.
“Should this annexation not go forward, the project would not go forward,” said Bonnie Layton, a planning consultant hired to lead the project by Donnelly developer Craig Groves.
Groves told Valley Lookout after the meeting that he is “evaluating options” for the 90-acre parcel, known as the Stockton 90.
The $20,000 Groves spent on the failed annexation process is among $6 million he has invested to date into Pine Creek Ranch since 2021, including the cost to buy the land near Payette Lakes Middle School.
The Stockton 90 is part of a significantly reduced McCall Impact Area boundary that is set to take effect Jan. 1, as Valley Lookout reported. Any development on it in 2026 and beyond is at the discretion of the Valley County Planning and Zoning Commission and will be subject to Valley County’s building codes.
The remaining 68 acres associated with Pine Creek Ranch are already within the sewer district and McCall City Limits. Current city zoning would allow up to 270 homes to be built on the land.
Sewer board: ‘comes down to capacity’
The sewer district’s board of directors cited financial constraints and sewer capacity limitations for its denial of Groves’ annexation request. Each director read a prepared statement explaining their rationale, except for Todd Fereday, who did not comment, and Dallas Young, who was absent.
“I am unwilling to give someone else’s capacity away to include this parcel in the district,” said Ellen Holm, who chairs the board. “That’s what this comes down to for me — capacity.”
Bill Weida echoed Holm, saying the annexation would “shift the cost” of storing Pine Creek Ranch’s treated wastewater onto existing ratepayers, citing a need for more storage capacity.
“Since the taxpayers of McCall…will not enjoy any profits made by the Pine Creek Ranch development, they should not be expected to subsidize any of the effluent disposal costs,” Weida said.
Sewer District Manager Jeff Bateman recommended denying Groves’ annexation request in a Sept. 3 letter to the board that said the sewer system is “already in jeopardy of being overwhelmed.”
Engineers: Pine Creek Ranch ‘in line’ with growth projections
Modeling of sewer flows projected from Pine Creek Ranch at buildout was “in line with the flows anticipated in the Master Plan,” according to an April 30 memo from David Watkins of JUB Engineers, the sewer district’s contract engineering firm. The master plan projects 2,013 new sewer connections to come online over the next 20 years, or more than three times as many as sought by Pine Creek Ranch.
However, the need for more treated wastewater storage than provided by a 268-million-gallon pond on the south side of Deinhard Lane was referenced by Watkins in a July 22 memo.
The capacity shortage can be managed in the short-term, Watkins said, by reducing the amount of stormwater and groundwater leaking into the sewer system. In the long term, the district will need to buy land for a second storage pond, he said.
“The primary concern is that eventually the facility will need to discharge in the winter due to excessive flow,” Watkins said in the memo.
Without donors like you, this story would not exist.
Make a donation of any size here
McCall’s treated sewage was routinely discharged into the North Fork Payette River up until 1998. Now, it is stored during the winter and used to irrigate agricultural land south of McCall during the spring.
Financial uncertainty
While Holm and Weida focused on capacity, Director Brian Renstrom said lacking details surrounding the financial implications of the project made it difficult to evaluate.
“Critically, no analysis was shared on the expenses the district will incur from the additional homes,” Renstrom said. “It seems certain that a development of this size will have administrative, operating, and maintenance costs that will offset some, or perhaps all of the revenue that we would receive.”
A financial analysis provided by Groves estimated Pine Creek Ranch would raise nearly $16 million for the sewer district over 20 years, including monthly user fees, connection fees, and property taxes.
Renstrom called that analysis “flawed” and said updated numbers submitted by Groves included net present values that used an “unrealistically low discount rate.”
“The flaws in the financial analysis are also cause for concern, as they do not reflect well on the quality of work that (the developer) performs,” he said.
Meanwhile, Weida noted that a $7 million bond issue approved by district voters in May leaves the district with no additional borrowing capacity. That reality, along with a list of master plan projects estimated to total more than $55 million, leaves the district with minimal financial flexibility, Weida said.
Consultants hired by Groves previously framed Pine Creek Ranch as a revenue source for funding improvements to the system, including a $2 million upfront commitment to complete infrastructure projects identified in the master plan.
District officials separated that benefit from the annexation request, however, noting that the upfront improvements still must be completed if Groves develops the 68-acre parcel within the district.
Conceptual plans for Pine Creek Ranch called for 275 single-family homes, with up to 108 accessory dwelling units on the home sites. No short-term rentals would be allowed in the ADUs.
The subdivision was also expected to build 163 townhomes and 60 smaller patio homes. Across the development, each unit was expected to average three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
