Developers jostle for property ranking

Developers do not agree on which property should be brought into Sisters Urban Growth Boundary under the proposed Sisters Urban Area Comprehensive Plan.

The plan requests that an additional 59 acres of land be brought into the Urban Growth Boundary in order to accommodate the growing city over the next 20 years.

The 59 acres of land is to fill the need for commercial/industrial, residential, and space needed for the expansion of the city’s sewer treatment facility.

To fill the need for residential land, 30 acres has been deemed adequate.

That’s down from 130 acres under a previous calculation that was changed when Sisters revised its population forecast downward.

According to Planning Director Bill Adams, when the residential land need was assessed last year, before the population forecasts were readjusted, there were numerous potential pieces of land parcels slated for inclusion.

Categories based on geographical location were imposed upon the list of potential land parcels. For the northern region of Sisters, the so-called Leithauser property was deemed the best candidate.

For the southern area of Sisters, an addition to the Pine Meadow Ranch development was most suitable for inclusion and for the west end of town, the McKinney Butte property was assessed as the best piece.

Now, since the land need for residential space has dropped from 130 acres to 30 acres, ranking the properties by geographic location has “gone out the window,” said Adams.

Without the geographical ranking, the list of properties in the order of most likely to be brought within the Urban Growth Boundary has changed.

Currently, in ranking order, the list reads as follows: the Leithauser Property, Pine Meadow Ranch addition, and tied for third is property owned by John and Peggy Tehan that lies south of the airport, off Black Butte Avenue, and property owned by Scott Redfield that lies adjacent to and west of the Tehan Property.

Developer Bill Reed has argued that his McKinney Butte property should be the top qualifier.

The city council has advised the planning department to “update the information and if that means the scores are changed, then we’re going to update the scoring as well,” said Adams.

Any additional information produced by the planning department will be presented in a public hearing on May 26.