April 2002
By Bill Welgoss
Tax assessment on Moon Lake Ranch, shown nearly complete above, was $3,000 annually prior to development. When development is complete, tax assessment should be about $500,000 annually for Ada County. An earlier phase of development (below) better shows the character of the land surrounding Moon Lake Ranch.
Land developer Ron Sali has obtained five permits to mine sand and gravel along the Boise River in Idaho over the last 10 years. His story may very well foretell the future character of aggregate mining.
His latest completed project, Moon Lake Ranch, 20 minutes west of Boise, Idaho, offers insight into his successful formula.
Adjacent to Moon Lake Ranch is a working cattle ranch owned by Ron Sali, where he has received countless offers over the years to buy his land for housing development. When Sali’s neighbor put his land up for sale, Sali decided to take the insight he learned from the suitor’s of his land to develop an exclusive 102-acre enclave of 20 water front multi-million dollar home sites.
For real estate buyers, Ron Sali offered a golden opportunity. Selling the undeveloped 10-acre lots in the $250,000 range, Sali doubled the value of the land for the lucky buyers upon completion of the project.
A vital factor in lowering the cost of development was mining the vast amounts of high quality gravel covered by only 7 to 8 ft. of overburden.
Sali’s development team devised an overall plan for the site consisting of extracting sand and gravel to form five man-made lakes to create lakefront property. More savings were realized by moving overburden to form 10 to 12 ft. berms—consisting of 3,000 to 6,000 cu. yds. of material—between properties to create additional privacy for homeowners, and using some of the on-site sand and gravel to lay the foundation and build the roads for the neighborhood. Sali also used overburden to build up areas of the property to eliminate risk of the home-sites being affected by the 500-year flood plain.
Four companies were contracted to extract and process aggregate from the site.
Western Construction, located in Boise, used sand and gravel from the site, located only two miles away, to build the Eagle Road bypass project, a multi-million dollar state highway project.
Other contractors using the material included Nelson Construction, for a landfill project; and Boise Paving, which also had the contract to build the roads on the Moon Lake site; and Central Paving. The asphalt contractors used about 6,000-8,000 cu. yds. of material for nearby pavement work. Central Paving, with a contract to crush concrete aggregate for a consolidated contractor, also supplied crushed aggregate for a concrete operation.
With four contractors working on-site, Sali admits it was like a war zone, but as he oversaw the project, he also saw the groundwork being laid for his development.
During the initial phases of mining at Moon Lake Ranch, one of the first lakes was created.
Permitting the land required notification of people within 1,000 ft. of the mine area. Sali went to each homeowner and explained that after the project was completed, it would not only raise the value of land on the Moon Lake Ranch property, but it would also raise the land value of the nearby homes. There was very little opposition to the project, according to Sali. Permitting went smoothly through the Ada County planning commission and other agencies because land was being transformed from farm use, which had been polluting the Boise River from run-off, to a residential development that incorporated a state-of-the-art self-contained sewage system. The additional lakes and islands built on the development also created more habitats for local plants and wildlife.
The Moon Lake project broke ground in the spring of 1997 and reached completion in 2000.
“It is an environmentalist’s paradise. It is a great place to bring up kids. Wildlife teaches you common sense—it was how I grew up,” said Sali.
Common sense seems to be the theme that runs through all Ron Sali’s developments. Sali owns none of his own equipment nor does he carry a work force. He hires subcontractors who are experts in their fields to develop the land to enhance the quality of the community.
Sali now has contracted with Washington state-based Summit Stone, Inc., the aggregate company that will extract and process sand and gravel on his Three River Ranch site consisting of 135 acres permitted for mining. Sali plans to keep Three Rivers a ranch and is building a home on it. But the reclamation plan for the site will provide Sali with an impressive lake on his property.
Mining by Summit Stone will continue through 2008, with an estimated production of 500,000 cu. yds. a year.
Some of the finest sand and gravel in the valley is coming from Ron Sali’s sites, yet neighbors and local planning agencies see these projects less as mine sites and more as “works-in-progress” to enhance the value of the community in environmental and economic terms. Food for thought.