News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters City Council plans to take a different tack in dealing with approximately 20 acres of land owned by the U.S. Forest Service inside the city limits of Sisters.
At a workshop on Thursday morning, November 30, the council agreed in principle to explore rezoning the land from Urban Area Reserve to make it suitable for commercial use.
The move marks a shift from a council proposal to "partner" with Multnomah Publishers in that company's efforts to initiate a land swap with the Forest Service to acquire the acreage along North Pine Street for a company campus.
Citizens had criticized the proposal as providing special treatment to one company.
"I'd like to take a zoning approach to it and let the chips fall where they may for whatever applicant," Mayor Steve Wilson said at the workshop.
The council instructed city planner Neil Thompson to research other cities' zoning requirements for business parks, with an eye toward launching the rezoning process in January. Zone changes require public hearings and Wilson said, "we want public input."
Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony reports being approached repeatedly over the past several years by parties interested in a swap for the land. Proposals have ranged from motel expansion to building affordable housing to Multnomah's proposal to create a business campus.
Anthony has asked the City of Sisters to declare what it wants the land to be used for in the future before his office entertains any proposal for a swap.
By zoning the land, the city hopes to clarify that point.
"That's probably the strongest endorsement we could make, just deciding what we want the land to be," Wilson said.
Even if the land is rezoned, any applicant still faces an arduous process in acquiring it from the Forest Service. An applicant would have to purchase another piece of property the Forest Service deems desirable to have in the public inventory in order to swap it for the land in the Sisters city limits.
According to Sisters Ranger District officials, land swaps must involve lands of equal monetary value and the parcel the agency would acquire must have a higher value to the public in terms of recreation opportunities or ecological importance.
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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