City snapshot

• Mayor Chris Frye signed the contract appointing Rick Allen as a limited-duration city manager for a set term through November 18, 2016 or upon termination at a point, whichever comes earlier.

Allen hit the ground running last Thursday with a morning council meeting and workshop, tour of the city, planning commission workshop, budget committee meeting in the evening, and meeting all of the staff. One of his first duties will be to circulate a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for a new city attorney.

Allen's position is part- time, so he will probably be physically in Sisters two, sometimes three, days a week. One of those days will be Thursday due to council meetings, workshops and planning commission meetings. The other day may be Monday. Allen reminded the council this will be a fluid time that will require flexibility on everyone's part.

"This is a six-month interim time. Some projects may just sit. It will not be business-as-usual. Some things may have to take a back seat," Allen said.

• The City of Sisters Budget Committee met last week to review the proposed 2016/17 fiscal-year budget, which will take effect July 1, 2016. The committee approved the budget in the amount of $11,488,000. They also approved taxes for the 2016/17 FY at the rate of $2.6417 per $1,000 of assessed value for the permanent rate tax levy. The strategic reserve fund will have $548,000 after allocating $50,000 for an affordable housing reserve as a line item in the general fund. City Council will vote in a regular session on accepting the Budget Committee's approvals.

• Clear Pine developer Peter Hall is planning to include two areas of cottages in his subdivision, if the planning commission approves changes to the current code to make building the cottages a feasible proposition. Hall's cottages will run 800-1,250 square feet with both single- and two-story floor plans.

The planning commission is currently looking at changing the current codes regulating cottages to make them workable, rather than throwing them out and starting from scratch. Hall's cottages would be built around a central shared open space with parking on the outside of the cluster. One cluster would be in the single-family residential part of the subdivision and the other in multifamily residential.

The planning commission is looking at two possible sets of rules - one for cottages as part of a master plan and one for cottages being built as infill on a single city lot.

• Sisters City Council will be holding a public hearing and considering a remand by the Land Use Board of Appeals regarding McKenzie Meadow Village at their Thursday, May 26, meeting, Anyone wishing to testify must sign up at the meeting in Council Chambers at 7 p.m.

• On May 19, City Council approved an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) for Right-of-Way Services associated with the Highway 20/Barclay Drive roundabout project. ODOT will be acquiring all of the right-of-way areas required for the project, both on the highway portions and the city street portion. Once the construction is completed, the portions on city streets will be transferred to the City.

• Two new maps have been created by the Community Development Department to assist in future planning activities. One of the maps is a comprehensive look at all vacant land currently within the city limits, with color coding to indicate the FEMA 100-year flood plain along Whychus Creek, constrained land, partially vacant, private right of way, undevelopable land (U.S. Forest Service, etc.), and vacant land. In red is all land already developed.

This map is part of the comprehensive urbanization study that is underway. The other map shows the entire city with a half-mile buffer all the way around it. By use of color coding, all of the building zones in the city are shown, such as downtown commercial, multifamily residential, light industrial, and public facilities. The zones in the buffer include Exclusive Farm Use, Forest Use 1 and 2, Rural Residential (which are larger lots), and Surface mining.

This is the map that will help determine the most logical areas to include in any future urban growth boundary adjustments to allow for future growth of the city.