News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
A months-long effort to resolve traffic and compatibility concerns about industrial developments north of Sisters will be hung up for another two weeks, due to a quirk of Sisters' voting procedure.
The Sisters City Council voted 2-1 on March 9 to approve an agreement that requires Barclay Meadows Business Park and the Sisters School District to pay over $150,000 apiece to mitigate traffic impacts from their developments.
But Sisters' charter requires a unanimous vote to introduce and pass the necessary ordinance in one meeting. Due to Councilor Tim Clasen's dissenting vote, the ordinance must be rolled over to the next council meeting for final approval.
Clasen indicated that he was uncomfortable with the complexity of the agreement. Councilor Dave Elliott was absent.
The developers need the agreement if they hope to gain county approval to bring the properties, totaling over 60 acres, into Sisters Urban Growth boundary and rezone them from farm use to light industrial.
A county hearings officer has recommended denial of the applications due to concerns about traffic and compatibility with neighboring residential areas.
Under the agreement, the school district would pay $158,345 and Barclay Meadows Business Park $152,295 to mitigate their share of impact on Sisters' traffic. Calculations were based on the cost of traffic signals on Cascade Avenue at Locust Street, Pine Street and a future intersection near Ponderosa Lodge.
The developers would also pay a share for a new road connecting the industrial park to Highway 20 at the west end of town.
However, if Sisters' Transportation Systems Plan calls for different solutions, the funds would be used for those improvements instead.
"(The agreement) gets my stamp of approval," said City Attorney Steve Bryant. "I think it's a positive agreement for all parties involved."
The city council insisted on getting payment as soon as the properties are subdivided or when a site plan is submitted, whichever comes first. The up-front payment gives Sisters a large sum of money with which to fund traffic improvements, rather than waiting for systems development charges to accumulate.
However, the city will still collect systems development charges as the properties develop.
According to Mayor Steve Wilson, the agreement allows Sisters to "leverage our resources to go farther, faster to address the (traffic) issues."
Not everyone thinks the agreement is a good deal.
"I have severe misgivings about the agreement," Trapper Point resident Denny Ebner told the council.
Ebner, whose home neighbors the proposed developments, is also a member of the citizens committee working on Sisters' Transportation Systems Plan.
"It really seems to me that you need to know from the TSP what improvements we're going to have as a community," Ebner said. "You don't have to make a decision on this now."
Ebner argued that there are better alternatives for industrial lands, including forested acres that are now part of the Sisters Ranger District compound.
A memorandum from county planning staff reported that the Sisters Ranger District is "willing to do an exchange, but highly prefers that it only include a public entity (specifically the City of Sisters).
"The USFS would need to find that the exchange is in the public benefit and that the properties are of equal value," the memo states. "In addition, the USFS prefers the city to take the initiative."
The city council could approve the agreement on March 23. The Deschutes County Board of Commissioners will make a decision on the application after March 31.
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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