News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters is changing fast and more changes are on the drawing board. New subdivisions are being planned and built that will bring hundreds of new homes into the city. Two major light industrial developments are in the planning stages or already getting underway.
Soon, some portion of the 80 acres of land where the Sisters Ranger District headquarters sits will be developed. Just how that development will played remains to be decided.
Keeping up with all that growth is the top priority of the Sisters City Council for 2006, according to City Manager Eileen Stein.
The council conducted an intensive goal-setting session facilitated by Maret Pajutee of the Forest Service on Saturday, February 4. The top goals that came out of the session were managing the Forest Service redevelopment and coming up with a comprehensive growth management strategy.
According to Stein, the council has debated the city’s level of involvement in the future of the Forest Service site.
“There was some discussion of whether the city should be involved in terms of actually purchasing some of that (land),” she said.
Ultimately, she said, the council decided that the city can exert enough influence to shape the future of the property through zoning.
“Besides,” Stein said, “we don’t have the kind of money the Forest Service is looking for.
Stein said the council considers the Forest Service land critical because it forms a large portion of the western portal of Sisters. The land is also designated for a potential road couplet link with Highway 20.
The couplet itself has been on a back burner for several months.
Stein expects the issue to heat up again as the council discusses an Oregon Department of Transportation analysis of a couplet configuration that would leave Hood Avenue and Main Avenue two-way streets instead of making them one-way corridors.
The city hired an engineering firm to review ODOT’s assumptions in the agency’s analysis. Stein said there are areas of disagreement.
While dealing with a “possible couplet refinement” is an important goal identified by the council, a “growth management strategy” came in as a higher priority.
According to Stein, the request by the developers of McKenzie Meadows to be placed on the May 16 ballot for annexation spurred the council to seek a strategy for handling the impacts — not only on the city’s infrastructure but also on the work load of the staff.
Stein said that annexing the property raises issues regarding meeting the comprehensive plan goals of creating 1-in-10 affordable housing, questions about water rights to maintain the city’s water system and more.
She said the council would like to hear more from the community about how residents want to see growth handled.
The council also wants to relocate the city recycling center, update its Transportation System Plan, complete a Systems Development Charge update and move forward on achieving a Tree City USA designation.
The council was to meet again on Saturday, February 11, to work on a plan to implement the goals identified on February 4. Stein said part of the reason to work on goals now is to prepare for making allocations in a budget proposal due in March.
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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