Ranch owners ponder improvements

There is a place.

And for that place, there is a price.

The second line is not a standard part of the advertising for Black Butte Ranch. Yet it is a thought that may occur to some property owners at the prestigious residential resort eight miles west of Sisters as they ponder imminent planned improvements.

Black Butte Ranch remains perhaps the nicest, and surely the most beautiful, of Central Oregon’s growing collection of residential resorts. It offers a magnificent setting with all the expected recreational facilities.

But like an aging Mercedes, the resort needs maintenance and repair. That’s why its board is proposing three large capital improvement projects, described as “immediate priorities,” at a cost of $12 million. Work would begin in the spring of 2006 and be completed in the spring of 2008.

These are contingent upon the approval of a majority of property owners. The owners will have their say in a formal election. Ballots will be mailed out by about August 10 and must be returned within a month, according to Loy Helmly, Black Butte Ranch president and general manager.

A “Yes” vote will authorize the $12-million worth of work for which the property owners must pony up $10.5 million. They or their predecessors have already contributed $1.5 million in the form of cash reserves that will be applied.

For paying the net $10.5 million, current owners will have three options: They can make a one-time payment by next January 1, for which they will receive a 10 percent discount, leaving a total of $7,830. They can make an annual payment for five years, which will be $1,653 after a five percent discount. Or they can pay $145 a month for five years.

These assessments will come on top of current monthly dues, which with water and sewage charges, come to $253.

There are 1,251 homesites at Black Butte Ranch, which opened in 1970. Since 1987, the ranch has been wholly owned by the property owners through an association.

Each property owner pays the same monthly maintenance dues and each will pay the same assessment for the improvements now proposed. The board has traditionally rejected proposals for imposing a sliding scale of dues or assessments related to property values or any other variable. Similarly, in elections on major issues such as the one coming up in August, results are based on an egalitarian “one homesite, one vote.”

What will Black Butte Ranch residents and visitors get if the election outcome is favorable?

• The largest, most expensive project involves upgrading the Glaze Meadow recreation complex, the largest and most heavily used of several such facilities on the ranch. The current complex will be redesigned to provide for a single structure housing locker rooms, fitness rooms, and an enlarged indoor pool. The outdoor pool will also be expanded, as will deck space, lawn and playground areas.

The explanatory brochure says the Glaze Meadow plan “is designed to serve…for the next 30 to 40 years.” This project accounts for $5.8 million, or nearly half, of the total cost of the overall package.

• Redesign of the ranch entry area. This will result in the construction of a new visitors center, a post office building and a third structure that will contain ranch administrative offices, police offices, and a conference center. The existing general store, stables office and horse barn will remain as is.

• Expansion of the “Section 5” area at the northwest corner of the ranch. This has traditionally been used for gravel mining and debris disposal. Under the new plan a variety of operations will be moved there, including maintenance, equipment repair and storage, housekeeping, vehicle covered storage, housekeeping and laundry, garbage transfer, outdoor equipment and general storage. The changes will include a new structure for housekeeping and maintenance offices as well as covered vehicle and equipment storage.

These three projects are part of a long-range plan “update” that was mailed to all property owners in January. Four other parts of the plan were identified for funding out of “available operational cash flow” to be done on a year-by-year basis.

They include a major bunker redesign of the Big Meadow Golf Course; linings for Aspen Lake, Meadow Grass Lake and Glaze Meadow Lake; Big Meadow “riparian restoration;” and the construction of Big Meadow walking paths. Some of these are already complete, or nearly so.

Black Butte Ranch owners have occasionally asked why the “Big Three” projects are being presented as an all-or-nothing package. A fact sheet mailed out by the association office quotes board member Lynn Stafford in defense of this strategy.

He said, “Although opening the pocketbook to this extent is difficult, the board would like to see all of the homeowners embrace the concept that each of these improvements is overdue, necessary and too difficult to prioritize. If we structured this as three separate votes, it is not a commitment to raise standards of the ranch but rather the ‘patch and fix’ methods of the past. To do a single project at a time simply doesn’t address what will be a continuing issue for the ranch for years to come.”

Material from the association office stresses the need to maintain high-quality central facilities, such as Glaze Meadow, in order to protect individual property values, which, according to the primary explanatory booklet, “have appreciated significantly over the last two decades, about 6 to 7 percent per year…”

What will happen if the vote is negative? Helmly told The Nugget last week that he doesn’t know.

“There is no contingency plan. It will go back to the board of directors to determine where to proceed next. That question was asked in one of our town hall meetings and I suppose someone thought there was a Plan B. But there is none.”