County: CEC lacks permit for poles

Central Electric Cooperative did not have proper county permits to erect at least some of the power poles they have put up in the Sisters area, according to a county code enforcement technician.

A lawyer for CEC disagrees, saying that because of Measure 37, no permits were required.

Deschutes County Code Enforcement opened a case on the matter last week.

The case involves "a parcel of CEC land within Deschutes County that is zoned F1 (forest)," said code enforcement technician John Griley. The exact location of the parcel was not released, but Griley said it is "outside the Tollgate subdivision."

Tollgate residents have complained that new steel poles, which replaced shorter wooden poles, damage the aesthetics of the neighborhood. CEC says new poles are needed to carry heavier transmission lines to provide power to the west end of Deschutes County.

"By Deschutes County code, transmission towers, the establishment or upgrading of transmission towers, are a conditional use," Griley told The Nugget. "It's our allegation that this work has been done without the required conditional use permit."

While the complaint deals with a specific parcel, Griley said his agency will look at some 19 line segments where CEC obtained Measure 37 waivers allowing them to carry out the work. Work has not yet been done on most of those segments.

It is not clear what if any impact the case will have on the ultimate disposition of the steel towers.

"The county's approach to code enforcement is voluntary compliance," Griley said. "So they would need to obtain the conditional use permit for that and that would resolve the case."

Speaking for CEC, lawyer Martin Hansen of Francis Hansen & Martin of Bend disputes that a conditional use permit is required. CEC received a waiver under the Measure 37 process, he said.

Measure 37, passed by voters in 2004, prevents government from restricting use of land with regulations passed after the owner purchased the land, or the government must compensate the owner. Deschutes County granted CEC waivers from restrictions, according to Hansen.

"The Conditional Use Permit process came in the last 25 years and postdates our Measure 37 rights. Land use regulations that have come in the decades since do not apply. That is why Measure 37 was adopted and why we got the waiver," Hansen said.

"The three county commissioners voted to grant us a waiver of the county permit process. That's what the waiver says, what the order says. It waives that process," Hansen said.

The installation of new steel towers running from Redmond to Black Butte Ranch has been contentious from the start. Eagle Crest and the Cyrus family of Sisters fought a court battle to stop the cooperative from putting up the towers across their land.

The Cyrus family opposed the project from the beginning, citing degradation of views from their property, some of which could be developed under Measure 37 guidelines. The family succeeded in an appeal of the original Deschutes County decision approving the project. The county denied a second CEC proposal.

However, CEC won a Measure 37 waiver from the county and proceeded with the work, installing new towers from Redmond west toward the Cyrus easement.

Owners of the proposed Thornburgh resort near Cline Butte filed suit to stop the installation of towers across resort lands and asked a judge to stop work. The work, however, had already been completed.

When the work reached Tollgate late last month, residents were upset at the scale of the project. They contend that CEC did not properly inform them of the impact the larger poles would have on their views and the aesthetics of the area.

The complaint filed is for a parcel outside the Tollgate subdivision that is zoned F1. It is likely that it is the location of the Tollgate substation, since most of the transmission line in the Tollgate area runs on federal land and would not be covered by local regulations, according to CEC lawyer Hansen.

"Almost the entire line that goes by Tollgate goes through the national forest where no state or county land use regulations apply," Hansen said.

But it was not clear at press time which parcel was in dispute. Hansen said he had not yet seen the county complaint.