Hood Avenue changes approved

Opponents of a one-way couplet through Sisters - as well as the developers of Pine Meadow Ranch - can breathe a sigh of relief.

The Deschutes County Commissioners and the Sisters City Council drove the final nail into the couplet's coffin and cleared the way for Pine Meadow Ranch's development at a joint meeting on June 25.

The city council, with approval from the county, passed two ordinances and a transportation map amendment realigning Hood Avenue.

Hood Avenue will now extend west across Pine Meadow Ranch, making a 90 degree bend to intersect with Highway 242. The road will eventually be connected to Highway 20 by a road across the Forest Service's future scenic by-way portal.

The plan had previously called for Hood Avenue to make a sweeping "high-speed" curve across the ranch.

"At one time a couplet was envisioned," said Neil Thompson, Sisters City Planner. "This represents the community's thinking that they do not want the couplet."

The new plan redesignates the Hood Avenue extension from an arterial - essentially a highway - to a collector, which collects traffic from local streets and funnels it into a main area.

In this case, Hood Avenue would collect traffic from the west side of town and funnel it onto Highway 20 on both ends of town.

Though the plan would encourage more vehicles to use Hood Avenue as an alternative to Cascade Avenue, it could not serve as part a fast-moving one-way route for eastbound traffic.

Eventually traffic on Hood Avenue will have to re-join Highway 20. Westbound traffic would have to turn left onto the highway near the Three Wind Shopping Center, and eastbound traffic must stop at a stop sign by Sisters Pumphouse and turn right into the traffic flow.

But the new plan does allow local traffic to bypass the intersection of Highways 20 and 242.

Voting quickly and unanimously, the Deschutes County Commission members all seemed to share Commissioner Linda Swearingen's view that the change "is long overdue."

The three members of the Sisters City Council formed a bare quorum, and were not as unified.

Council President Gordon Petrie voted against the ordinances, urging his colleagues to postpone the vote until a meeting two weeks away.

"One hour ago I received the staff report, and there are many other documents involved that city council members have not seen," Petrie said. "What I'm being asked to do is close my eyes and sign, and I am not prepared to do that."

Heidi Kennedy, planner for Deschutes County, responded that, "The staff report has been in circulation and the only thing that is new are the actual words written to approve what has been in the works for so long."

Council members Sheryl Whent and Tim Clasen were prepared to vote and supported the ordinances.

Steve McGhehey, the developer for Pine Meadow Ranch, as well as Liz Fancher, the ranch's attorney, spoke on behalf of passage of the ordinances. There was no public testimony opposing the changes.