News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
A local activist group wants developers to pay more for roads, water, sewers and parks within the City of Sisters.
A political action committee called Citizens for Fair Development Charges has filed a ballot initiative requiring that the City of Sisters charge the maximum systems development charges allowed by state law. Voters will decide the issue in the November 3 election.
If the initiative passes, charges could add up to between $7,000 and $9,000 per single-family residence.
Systems Development Charges (SDCs) act as a kind of community savings account to maintain and expand infrastructure. New development pays according to the impact it has on the infrastructure.
Currently, water is the only service for which SDCs are in place - at $2,867 per equivalent development unit. With the passage of a sewer bond initiative, SDCs of around $3,000 per EDU are to be charged for the sewer system.
SDCs for streets are awaiting adoption of the transportation system plan, which is part of the Sisters Comprehensive Plan.
A city council committee led by Tim Clasen is at work on a parks plan.
"The purpose of this is so that we will be able to get systems development charges to the fullest extent," said CFDC member Virginia Groom. "We now pay in Sisters the largest amount allowed in the state for water. We just want to continue that for sewer, transportation, parks and storm drains."
City Planner Neil Thompson said the city council has long been determined to "aggressively pursue" SDCs, as evidenced by the maximum rate charged for water.
But Thompson has some philosophical problems with the initiative because it sets charges automatically, instead of tailoring them to fit specific circumstances.
"I put that in the same category as term limits and balanced budget amendments," Thompson said. "It's kind of an attempt to govern by auto-pilot. If you set (SDCs) at the highest rate, you just bludgeon everything, instead of encouraging what you want and discouraging what you don't want."
Thompson noted that "SDCs are a tool to keep certain things out," such as drive-thru fast food restaurants. He said some communities have determined that drive-thru traffic places a heavy burden on transportation systems, and charge heavily for the impact. This discourages that kind of development.
Sisters residents have often expressed concern about fast-food restaurants moving into town in the wake of a sewer.
But on the other hand, Thompson said, Sisters may one day want to encourage certain types of businesses with certain types of jobs, and lower SDCs can provide an incentive along the lines of an "enterprise zone."
Developers don't necessarily feel the pinch of SDCs directly.
"It's a cost that is passed on to the consumer and it increases the cost of housing," Thompson said. "That's been my experience. It doesn't squeeze the profit margin."
Higher SDCs inside the city limits could influence where people build. Thompson noted that the county, outside the city limits, doesn't charge any SDCs.
That difference could make building inside Sisters more expensive "probably by a factor of four or five," in terms of government-imposed costs, Thompson said.
But higher SDC costs would be offset to some degree by savings on such things as wells and septic systems, which an in-city resident wouldn't need.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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