By Kevin Hanson-The Courier-Herald

Interest in Enumclaw certainly seems to be heating up.

Developers lined up at the door recently when the city announced it would be making a limited number of utility connections available. Each was scrambling for the opportunity to build homes on now-vacant land in the city.

&#8220It was pretty robust,” said Community Development Director Mike Thomas, describing the competition for the right to build new homes.

The city has not been allowing new residential connections, placing a moratorium on development until improvements to the municipal wastewater treatment plant are completed. Recently, however, the city decided to transfer some unused commercial capacity to residential use.

The result was 89 new sewer connections. The city began taking requests and, in a short time, received 244 applications. Thomas had already announced the city would dole out the sewer connections using a &#8220concentric ring” philosophy - giving priority to those closest to the city's downtown core. The idea was to fill in gaps in existing neighborhoods before expanding into areas of less housing density.

Eventually, the 89 connections were granted to eight developers.

Getting the bulk of the allocations, Thomas said, was Bob Lehr, owner of 15 vacant acres on the east side of Semanski Street. Getting 15 connections was Robert Striker, who is looking to develop land north of Warner Avenue and east of the new Elk Meadows subdivision.

The remaining allocations, Thomas said, went to people interested in small projects of one to three homes.

All the connections were for single-family homes, he noted.

&#8220It's going to be a busy year,” Thomas said, explaining that the city will not allow the newly-allocated connections to go unused. In the past, developers were granted sewer connections and held on to them for years. That won't be happening this time around.

The clock started ticking Monday and developers will have 30 days to pay an application fee of $2,500 per connection. Additionally, they will have 60 days to submit development applications. If those deadlines aren't met, Thomas said, the city will rescind the right to develop.

&#8220There's been a lot of interest,” Thomas said, &#8220and we don't want people sitting on these.”

Kevin Hanson can be reached at khanson@courierherald.com.