Development hits planning hurdle

Hayden Homes’ plan to develop a 43-acre residential community in northwest Sisters has met its first hurdle. The Sisters Planning Department has advised them that their Master Plan and Conditional Use Application are incomplete.

Richard Nored, president of HGE INC., Architects, Engineers, Surveyors & Planners, reviewed the Hayden documents for completeness. Areas of concerns were:

Impact Study for Water — The current water system was developed for 1,123 residents. The city population is already over 1,400. Hayden has addressed the concern over water capacity by stating that current fire flow and residual pressures are sufficient to serve the first two phases, but, according to HGE, this is misleading and is not substantiated by fact.

Hayden addresses the water need for the remaining five phases by indicating that the City of Sisters will need to increase its capacity. HGE responded, “The current water system master plan will provide for construction of a third well, but this will require obtaining additional water rights, which is not currently fundable through the SDC (Systems Development Charges) program.”

HGE went on to say, “The city needs to develop a new Water System Master Plan, which has not begun at this point, and will require time to complete.”

Wastewater System Capacity — Although current wastewater system capacity is 1,814 residents, existing developments at build-out will utilize all of the available capacity.

Hayden’s impact study states that no significant impacts are anticipated for Phase 1 of the subdivision. According to HGE, “This statement makes a bigassumption that growth would only occur in this development during Phase 1, and further assumes that expansion of the wastewater system would occur to allow development of subsequent phases.”

Other HGE items of concern were: 1. The planned street construction proposes a reduced development section from adopted city standard; 2. Street lights and signing have not been addressed by the master plan; and 3. The source of irrigation water has not been addressed.

In a seven-page response to Hayden Homes, the city planning department expanded upon HGE’s recommendations.

Hayden has been asked to quantify and assess the effect of the development on public facilities and services in their impact study. In addition to the water and wastewater concerns already noted, the planning staff has asked for details on the effect on drainage, parks, traffic, power, cable and phone and fire and emergency protection.

The city asked Hayden to explain why their proposal exceeds the underlying district standards “in many respects.”

Access is another concern. No alleys are proposed. Other issues are the number of access points, shared driveways, driveway openings, and the lack of a pedestrian plan.

Next is protection of existing trees. The city has asked for a tree count of the existing site and at build-out and is concerned that, “The layout of the subdivision does not appear to take into consideration protection of the densest stands of trees.”

Other issues relate to landscape planning (no plan submitted), fences, walls, vehicle and bicycle parking, various public works standards, time limit requirement for phasing, preliminary plat approval (no preliminary plat submitted), and potential negative impacts relating to building mass, traffic, noise and aesthetic considerations.

Hayden Homes had projected groundbreaking on Phase 1 for mid- to late- summer, 2005.

However, the Sisters Planning Department questions whether they can respond to all the questions and still keep to that time frame.