Legislation would allow "Cyrus Heritage Farm"

The Cyrus family has added a new twist to their efforts to build a destination resort near Sisters.

House Bill HB3372, submitted to the Oregon legislature by Representative Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, would allow a proposed 1,500-acre "Cyrus Heritage Farm" development that would be exempt from local county land use planning control.

In exchange, the developers would be required to provide payment to a variety of local groups for each building permit. The developer would also be required to dedicate conservation areas and agricultural lands.

HB3372 would allow "Cyrus Heritage Farm" (CHF) to build 495 dwellings, up to 100 RV resort spaces, and a wide variety of recreational facilities. In exchange, for each building permit issued, CHF would pay $1,000 in systems development charges (SDCs) to the City of Sisters (up to $495,000), $2,500 to the Sisters Schools Foundation for capital improvements (up to $1,237,500), and $2,500 to the Department of Fish and Wildlife or an environmental educational non-profit such as Wolftree (up to $1,237,500).

In addition HB3372 would increase the open space requirement from 50 percent to 60 percent, create permanent protection for 250 acres of agricultural lands, and create permanent protection for 129 acres along a half-mile stretch of Whychus Creek.

The bill is modeled on the Rural Jobs Act of 2009. The proposal is similar to the 2009 Skyline Forest bill, and to the current bill being consider this legislative session to allow Sunriver Resort Limited Partnership to build 925 additional homes.

The Cyrus Heritage Farm development does not include any of the lands included in either the Cyrus-developed Aspen Lakes Golf Estates, or in the troubled Cyrus' Aspen Lakes Golf Club and Restaurant (Wildhorse Meadows) which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February.

"I think people need to remember what this means for local control, and what this means for Whychus Creek, with basically a new city of houses a couple miles outside Sisters," said Merry Ann Moore, a resident of The Rim at Aspen Lakes and a local Sierra Club representative. "Do we want our land use laws to mean something?

"We are seeing multiple assaults on Oregon's land use laws by developers right now, who are using the economic difficulties in Central Oregon as a pretext to get some pretty outrageous exemptions for their projects at the state level," said Moore.

Matt Cyrus said, "There are actually very few people who actively oppose the project. The 111 homeowners within the Golf Course Estates have been very supportive. This bill is intended to address many of the concerns that have been voiced regarding destination resorts over the past years. Our family has lived in the Sisters Community for over 100 years, and it is our intent to create a development that will be a complement to the Sisters community."