The developers of the Riverhouse Convention Center and River’s Edge golf course plan to convert the golf course’s former driving range site into 43 lots for new homes.

River’s Edge Property Development LLC filed a preliminary application with the city of Bend last month to develop lots on the 7.5-acre site. The proposal calls for building in two phases, one with 15 homes and the other with 28.

There are no immediate plans to build homes, said Gary Cox, a partner with the property development company. But that could change next year, if Bend home prices keep climbing, he said. They want homes with values in the roughly $300,000 to $450,000 range built on the site.

Planning documents show the lots would be platted just west of Northwest Clubhouse Drive, near its intersection with Mount Washington Drive and adjacent to the Deschutes River Trail.

Developers would also create two new streets, Northwest River Trail Place and Northwest Sawyer Trail Place, dividing the lots into several sections.

“We’re just trying to get (the proposal) through the process,” Cox said, referring to the city of Bend application process for new development projects. “The way the market is going, we think the demand will be there soon.”

The median Bend home price was $270,000 in March, according to figures from Bratton Appraisal Group. It was the highest median since late 2008. Sales of homes between $300,000 and $450,000 have increased about 11 percent over the last year, Bratton data show. But they still trail significantly the $100,000 to $300,000 market, which drove nearly two-thirds of the home-sales activity across Bend in the last 12 months.

The site hasn’t been a driving range for about two decades, Cox said. The range was pushed further west in the early 1990s, as the golf course expanded from nine holes to 18 holes.

New homes on the site would mark the first homebuilding activity for the development since before the real estate crash in 2008. It also follows a July settlement between the city of Bend and River’s Edge Investments, LLC, which resolved a 2007 lawsuit filed by River’s Edge Manager Wayne Purcell over development rights and city sewage capacity.

City officials feared River’s Edge’s initial proposal for 349 homes along the entire property would critically strain an already tight sewage capacity.

The new plan reached under the settlement includes 269 homes, with a deadline of 2019 to build.