By Dennis Box

The Courier-Herald

The Falling Water development is fast becoming a reality as roads are going in and soon houses will be built.

According to project manager Bill Diamond the roads for the first phase of the development are completed and utilities are being installed.

The first division includes 115 lots. Weber-Thompson is designing the homes.

"The goal for Falling Water is to create a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented development," Diamond said.

At the July 6 Bonney Lake City Council workshop, a utilities annexation resolution was considered, but some of the members balked at bringing the development into the city's urban growth area (UGA).

Two issues are causing questions on the council when annexation is considered.

First is the improvements that will be necessary to Rhodes Lake Road when nearly 1,000 homes are built in the development.

Second is the task of providing sewer service to the area when Bonney Lake is already reaching capacity in the Sumner sewage plant.

"The county is counting on us caving in and putting them into our UGA," Councilman Dave King said. "Then we may be stuck holding the bag when it comes to taking care of Rhodes Lake Road which would be very costly. Also, we will be obligated to get rid of this sewage and our sewage plant is fast being outgrown."

Diamond felt the council has misunderstand the intent of the developers.

"Pierce County is not really forcing this down their throat," Diamond said. "I'm just asking the council not to get overwhelmed. We will come up to the city's density requirements. This is still in flux."

Without the city sewer hook up, Falling Water will use an off-site community drain field. King noted that both Bonney Lake and the county have concerns the community drain field may contaminate the ground water and the city's aquifer.

Diamond stated the community drain field was outside of Bonney Lake's aquifer.

"Sewer lines and man holes are in the ground on-site now," Diamond said. "Once the agreement is signed we turn off the community drain field and turn on sewer lines at no expense to the city."

The city will maintain the on-site sewer lines. Diamond said the city will be paid a maintenance fee and will receive $5,000 per lot and a hook-up fee.

"As you can see, the development is paying its own way," Diamond said. "This means a huge amount of fees for the city in the upcoming divisions."

Falling Water is between McCutcheon Road and 188th Avenue Court East. It is currently slated for about 1,000 homes on 479 acres.

"We are going to need a hard nosed meeting with Falling Water, Bonney Lake and the county," King said. "No one wants to do this, but I think it is the only way we can work this out. Bonney Lake and the county are reluctant to take on this 800-pound gorilla. The difficulty is Bonney Lake is growing rapidly and we can't do everything in one year. If it was one or two projects that would be one thing, but it has become 10 or more projects in a very short period of time. We need to have a game plan to deal with this."

Dennis Box can be reached at dbox@courierherald.com