News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
City planner Neil Thompson has suspended the building permit on a new office and retail building at the corner of Cascade Avenue and Larch Street.
According to Thompson, the building was not approved by the Sisters Urban Area Planning Commission.
The previous owners of the property, Jim Massey and Leslee Bangs received approval for a 3,852-square-foot building in 1996. They later sold the property with that site plan approval.
The new owner of the property, Dan Berrey of Portland, is building a 5,452-square-foot building on the site. Drawings show architectural features in the new building that are different from those originally approved.
Thompson acknowledged that he should not have authorized the building permits for Berrey.
"I allowed him to get building permits without knowing what he was going forward with," Thompson said.
Thompson acknowledged that last January, Berrey had explored plans for a larger building, with a "second phase" addition and including a 36-foot cupola. The cupola exceeded the city's 30-foot building height requirement. (According to Thompson, Berrey is no longer planning to include the cupola).
Thompson said he told Berrey that a larger building would hinge on parking and sanitation requirements.
"I led him to believe that if the septic situation was solved, and if the parking was solved, I could probably approve that situation," Thompson said.
Thompson said he also indicated that he could get the architecture approved.
"(Berrey) went off to pursue those things," Thompson said, apparently thinking approval from the Department of Environmental Quality and from the fire chief was sufficient.
"Based on the conversation I had with him, I guess I gave him that impression," Thompson said.
But septic system approval from the DEQ and approval to exceed building heights from the fire department were not sufficient.
The building still had to be approved by the planning commission.
Thompson told The Nugget that Berrey "feels that he gave me information about the changes in the building in great detail and I approved them."
Thompson told the planning commission in their September meeting that he was administratively approving changes to the building.
He said he was informed by the city attorney Steve Bryant on October 14 that he could not do that.
"I've made a whole cascade of mistakes in handling this situation," Thompson said.
According to Thompson, the mistakes all stemmed from an effort to allow the builder to keep the right to use five parking spaces on Cascade Avenue as part of the site's required parking.
Without those parking spaces, the builder would have to site more parking on the property or pay $5,000 per space to the city.
The original plan was approved before the city changed its parking ordinance and took away credit for highway parking spaces. Thompson granted Massey and Bangs, and then the new owner, Berrey, a series of extensions to allow them to keep those parking spaces.
According to Thompson, when those extensions finally ran out in August 1998, Berrey sought and Thompson authorized building permits to preserve Berrey's ability to move forward with the project.
Thompson told The Nugget that he sent Berrey a fax on Thursday, October 15, telling him that any further work on the building was at Berrey's risk, because the building had not been approved.
Berrey told The Nugget on October 15, "we have a permit to build the building and we do not have a stop order on the project."
Work continued on the building on Tuesday, October 20.
According to Thompson, the suspension of the building permit takes effect when Berrey receives a letter, reportedly sent Monday, from the city's building inspector.
Thompson said that Berrey will request a site plan amendment.
"This is an amendment of an approved site plan, which preserves the parking on Cascade," Thompson said. "That's the position I'm taking."
The planning commission is set to hear the request for a site plan amendment in a special hearing on Wednesday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m. at Sisters City Hall.
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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