City defends its population forecast

And 4,688 by 2025? photo by Jim Cornelius If it's wrong, prove it. That's the defense the City of Sisters is mounting against a challenge of its most recent population forecast. City officials will present that defense to the Deschutes County Commissioners at a public hearing on May 13.

The forecast, which was configured by city planners, is their "best educated guess," said Brian Rankin, city planner. But that guess was configured meticulously, thoroughly, and over a painfully long three years, Rankin said.

The city forecast is part of a county-wide project. Those forecasts will be reviewed by the county commissioners and the public and, if approved, will become part of an updated 2000-2025 Deschutes County Coordinated Population Forecast.

Population forecasts are used to predict the need for developable land in city boundaries. Until the population forecast is approved, the city has no basis to predict the amount of land needed for urban growth expansion. So, the city's intent to add 134 acres of land to its Urban Growth Boundary is on hold, Rankin said.

Rankin said Sisters began revising the 2000-2025 forecast about three years ago, after Paul Dewey, attorney, challenged its accuracy and appealed it to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).

At that time, opponents said the population forecasts were too high, and claimed the forecast would promote more urban development than necessary, and draw too many people to move to Sisters.

"Planners and city staff generally agree it is better to overestimate (population), but anti-growth people say it induces more growth," Rankin said. "If you're building, they will come. So I see both points. So what do you do? You make the most accurate forecast possible."

In response to Dewey's opposition, Rankin said the city has added many paragraphs to the forecast, which explain in detail the process behind configuring various numbers.

The city also added more census and building permit information and tried to "quantify" as much information as possible, including the impact of the new sewer on population growth, Rankin said.

That work resulted in a slight decrease for the 2025 forecast, dropping it to 4,688 from the previously forecast 4,936 people.

The assumptions in the forecast were made by analyzing the following: the impact the growth in the number of housing units has had on population growth; the ongoing impact of the new sewer; the number of building permits per year and the supply of rural land in the Sisters School District.

Rankin told the city council in a workshop on Thursday that he is pleased by the new forecast, which he said is better than the first. But, he emphasized, it is still a guess.

Councilor Lon Kellstrom agreed.

"The bottom line on this is that there is no right answer," Kellstrom said. "We could be right. We could be dead wrong."

The new forecast predicts the rural land in the Sisters School District will be built out by 2017 resulting in "slow but steady increases in the number of residential building permits issued in the city (up to a maximum of 30 per year starting in 2017)," according to a city report.

"Thirty is not a lot," Rankin told The Nugget. "It's tougher to assume that the people who want large lots and llama farms will come inside the city, but I suppose that some will."

Either way, Rankin explained, the promise of growth is impending.

"I have people all the time drive through Sisters, and say they really like Sisters; it's a beautiful area," Rankin said. "They say, 'I don't like Bend. It's too hustly-bustly; and I don't like the feel of Redmond and I won't live in La Pine, but I really like Sisters.' So it's happening now."

The city is crossing its fingers that the updated population forecast will pass. If it is appealed, it could go before LUBA and later to the Oregon Supreme Court.

That process could take up to five years.

The updated forecast is a better-prepared document than those of the past, but when it comes down to it, it is still only another opinion, Rankin said.

"If someone says, 'your population forecast stinks,' then I'll say, okay, but show me I'm wrong," Rankin said. "You have to have a factual basis for that. That's the hard thing about it. They (opponents) are just as vulnerable as us."