This view off 14th Street, west of Elberta, looks toward an undeveloped area where the Whispering Pines subdivision will be extended. Plans are to add another 25 lots.
This view off 14th Street, west of Elberta, looks toward an undeveloped area where the Whispering Pines subdivision will be extended. Plans are to add another 25 lots.
A local developer is planning a 25-lot expansion of his subdivision at West 14th and 15th streets between Meeks and Elberta streets.
Whispering Pines was started by Lorne Richman in 1996, when he bought 24 acres. He’d seen a lone blue house on the acreage and thought it would be a beautiful location for a subdivision.
He’s already developed much of the first half of the subdivision and has applied with the city of The Dalles for permission to subdivide four large lots into 25 smaller lots, each measuring an average of 75 by 100 feet.
The entire subdivision will have about 50 lots when it’s finished.
Richman, who was manager of Equitable Savings and Loan for 15 years before going into business himself, is the subdivider of the land. His five children own stock in the company, and two of them are working to help prepare the lots and build the homes on them.
The two are Danny Richman of MBR Construction in The Dalles, who does excavation, underground work and landscaping, and Lynn Richman of Lynn Richman Construction, who builds houses.
Most of the homes in the subdivision have been built by his sons. He just slowly builds and sells one at a time. The average home in the subdivision is 2,000 square feet.
Recently, he saw the market was right for finishing up his subdivision. “It’s like everything else, real estate has just gone mad here,” he said.
He started out thinking he would build low-cost housing but learned that the people who might need it wouldn’t qualify for loans, so he dropped the idea.
He said he would probably extend 14th Street westward first, and then start developing 15th Street next year.
“We had years we didn’t sell anything,” he said of the lulls in the market. “The nice thing about it was we had it paid for.”
He paid $240,000 for the entire parcel in 1996, and now just three lots would sell for that price.
“It’s different times,” he said.
Notices about the proposed extension of Whispering Pines were sent to people living nearby.
Comments were due by Tuesday, April 24, and a staff report and decision will occur by the end of May, said Dawn Hert, senior planner for the city.
Richman is awaiting engineering drawings on underground work, and he hopes to start working on the extension of 14th Street by June 1.
He said it should take 90 days to do the underground work like water, sewer, electric lines, phone lines and gas lines. He said he uses all local contractors for the work. Sidewalks are built when the homes are built.
While his sons usually build the homes, he said there is the possibility of selling lots to people to develop themselves.
Whispering Pines is one of the larger subdivisions in town. In 2007, the JG Wilson subdivision, at the site of the former elementary school, created 22 lots.
In 2017, Lone Pine Land & Cattle created a 50-lot subdivision on land at the Lone Pine development by The Dalles bridge. It is the last part of the residential development to the west of the Water’s Edge medical building. It is in the midst of infrastructure being built for utilities and roads.
A smaller four-lot subdivision was also approved this year at 10th and Mt. Hood streets, according to the city planning office.
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