News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Mountain Shadow RV Park cannot site semi-permanent "park model trailers" at their facility at the west end of Sisters.
The Sisters City Council decided Thursday, July 23, not to change the city's zoning ordinance to accommodate the park trailers. Mountain Shadow had sought to eliminate a clause limiting the stay of an RV to three months in any six-month period.
Mountain Shadow manager Tom Anderson told The Nugget that he would keep trying to get the trailers allowed.
Though designated a recreational vehicle by the Department of Motor Vehicles, the units resemble small motor homes. Owners drop the axles off the units and build a deck around them, making them essentially a permanent dwelling.
Park management wanted the buildings to be placed, but not occupied, permanently.
"We continue to think it's in the best interest of the city; we continue to think it's in the best interest of Mountain Shadow," Anderson said.
He also considers accommodating the park model trailers to be "in the best interest of the 1998-99, year 2000 recreational vacationing public."
Anderson believes more and more people are interested in owning park model trailers instead of traveling in a standard RV.
Mayor Steve Wilson argued that placing permanent structures in the park violates the intent of the conditional use under which the park operates - to "serve the traveling public."
By taking up RV spaces with park models, he said, "we're displacing the very people targeted by the original conditional use."
That could, he argued, force Sisters to find another place to accommodate RVers.
The council did not buy the argument that the park models are really RVs.
"Through some strenuous lobbying, a unit that becomes stationary is still called an RV and I have a hard time accepting that," said councilor Gordon Petrie.
He expressed concerns that the city would be creating housing in the commercial zone.
"I think this kind of housing would just expand and expand and expand, and, I'd say, at the expense of the regular housing industry," Petrie said.
The council and the planning commission have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the park models, although the planning commission did recommend that the council hear the zone change request.
Anderson told The Nugget that park owner Wayne Scott had asked him to meet with city planner Neil Thompson and city administrator Barbara Warren "to see what is the next appropriate step."
City Planner Neil Thompson said he does not believe there is another recourse for an appeal of the city council decision.
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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