Spokane businessman Pete Rayner says a company he heads has taken initial steps to begin developing lots in a $20 million-plus first phase of a long-envisioned community on Beacon Hill in northeast Spokane.

Rayner, a principal in Beacon Hill Properties Spokane, has applied for a preliminary plat and planned unit development that would include 156 lots for 304 single-family and multifamily residential units on 40 acres of land northeast of Esmeralda Golf Course, about a mile east of Market Street via Wellesley Avenue.

Rayner says Beacon Hill Properties is proposing a subdivision with 71 single-family homes, and 69 townhouses. An apartment complex with up to 164 units would be located on six acres of land within the subdivision, he says.

Beacon Hill Properties hopes to have lots prepared by the fall of 2011 or the spring of 2012, and intends to sell them to builders and possibly individual buyers who would hire their own builders, Rayner says.

The single-family homes and townhouses likely would be starter to mid-range homes priced from $140,000 to $300,000, he says.

That would put the total value of just that portion of the development at about $20 million, not including the apartments.

Lot sizes would be between 4,000 and 10,000 square feet, and homes built on them likely would have 1,200 to 3,000 square feet of floor space Rayner says.

"The price of energy will dictate what people build and what they want to heat," he says. "We're looking for energy-efficient, community-minded builders."

Rayner declines to estimate the value of the apartments, but says he envisions that they would be targeted toward urban professionals, and that rents would be above the median for Spokane-area apartments.

The proposed homes would be close to several trails, he says.

"Virtually every resident will be able to leave their backyard on a bike or in tennis shoes and have access to 50 to 60 miles of trails," Rayner says.

Access to the development would be via three streets that would connect to Valley Springs Road.

Residents in the development also would have easy access to the North Spokane Corridor, he says.

The development would be the first phase of a 182-acre community on land owned by Rayner and Dave Baker, another principal in Beacon Hill Properties. The land is zoned for single-family and multifamily uses and is within Spokane's city limits.