News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
After weeks of tension-filled discussion, the Sisters City Council voted 4-1 to accept an annexation agreement with the owners of the 30-acre McKenzie Meadows property at the west end of Sisters.
The agreement allows for a senior assisted-living center on the property, along with single-family residential dwellings.
The agreement is the first step in a long road toward completion of such a project. The property must first be formally annexed by ordinance; then the owners - Bill Willitts, Curt Kallberg and the Reed family must seek a zone change to allow their desired type of development on the property. Finally, a project must go through a master planning process involving the city's planning commission.
"There's a lot of things that have to happen that will be subject to public hearings," said city planning director, Eric Porter, in a workshop preceding the regular council meeting on Thursday night.
At that workshop, several modifications were made to the agreement that grew out of an informal meeting between Councilor Pat Thompson and Councilor Bill Merrill. Merrill has long indicated that he was opposed to the annexation.
The modifications included inserting "assisted-living" into the agreement where it had been absent, despite the fact that that is what property owners had described as their intent for the property.
Another change was removal of language that would have allowed commercial applications and elimination of an age restriction on the single-family residence portion of the proposed project.
"My opposition, quite frankly, to this has been resolved with these modifications," Merrill said.
A request to consider sending the matter back to the voters, who approved annexation in 2006, died for lack of a motion and the agreement passed with four votes.
Sharlene Weed, the lone dissenter, took issue with the discussions that led to Merrill's change of heart, saying that the process should involve "no back room discussions and loyalties. No appearances of special treatment. We need open, transparent communication, a truly democratic process while keeping the good of the whole community at the forefront."
Councilor Weed has consistently argued that there is no need to annex McKenzie Meadows and that the annexation agreement offers no timeline or guarantee of completion. She believes the agreement secures "at best, marginal community benefit."
Weed was almost entirely alone in vocalizing opposition. Jeff England, a consultant for the property owners, called for a show of hands of those in favor of the annexation and an overwhelming proportion of the large city hall audience raised their hands.
Mike Morgan was the lone voice in opposition among citizens who testified. In his testimony and a letter to the city council, Morgan argued that "we will end up with 30 more acres of streets and subdivided lots with utilities stubbed in and all of it overgrown with weeds. Mr. Keith Sampson has worked hard to find local investors and has found none."
In his own testimony, Sampson, an agent for senior living center developer Pinnacle Alliance Group, acknowledged that "it's been difficult in these economic times to find investors." He said the group has "acquired up to $1.2 million" of the $4 million needed to bring the project to fruition.
Much of the testimony focused on the need for a senior living facility in Sisters.
Phyllis Lewis said, "I anticipate having a home on one of the lots when I am no longer able to maintain my home." Then, she said, she'd move into the center.
"I feel that when I'm 90 I should be free of cooking and cleaning," she said, to much laughter.
Lewis also noted that her 97-year-old father would be served by a center in Sisters.
"I would love to have him here in Sisters where I could see him every day," she said.
Other testimony defended the motives of the property owners.
"I have had a really hard time with the attitude toward developers in terms of these three families," said Bonnie Malone.
She noted that Willitts, Kallberg and the Reeds have all been longtime contributors to the community of Sisters.
"I would request that people see this group as visionaries, not developers," she said.
For his part, Kallberg used his testimony to apologize for characterizing Weed and Merrill as "professional obstructionists" in an interview with The Nugget.
Willitts noted that it has been 1,279 days since the annexation agreement was first brought before the city. Planner Eric Porter was reluctant to attach a time frame to the process from here on out, but an annexation ordinance, zone change and master planning process will take, at minimum, several months to complete.
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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