Gas station hearing set for July 13

The Sisters Planning Commission’s public hearing on the controversial plan to renovate the Space Age Fuel station at the corner of Cascade Avenue and Pine Street will pick up again on Thursday, July 13, at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.

The hearing is a continuation of a session held on June 15.

City staff has recommended denial of the application for the owner of the Space Age Fuel station to rebuild the current facility. The recommendation is based on the development standard of compatibility. Based on the information in the record as of June 1, staff concluded the proposal had not satisfied the conditional-use criteria in Sisters Development Code 4.4. Additional information submitted into the record after the issuance of the staff report could result in a different recommendation by staff.

The proposal concerns the 35,541-square-foot property composed of two lots on the corner of West Cascade Avenue and South Pine Street. The plan calls for a fuel island with 16 fuel points under a 4,300-square-foot canopy, a 3,500-square-foot convenience market, and other improvements, including vehicle parking, pedestrian paths, landscaping, and a trash enclosure. The current three access points to Pine Street would be reduced to two.

The prominent relevant issues within the Development Code that staff used to make their recommendation had to do with the Western design theme, outdoor lighting, and Sisters’ dark skies ordinance, traffic impacts, and

compatibility.

Staff said that the application did not meet the compatibility requirements because the new station would be too large, the scale not consistent with the smaller surrounding businesses and residential lots, and the design is not consistent with the small-town character of Sisters. The number of pumps and the size of the fuel island canopy are too large.

The hearing can be accessed via Zoom. The Planning Commission agenda on the City of Sisters website provides the link, meeting ID and passcode: bit.ly/gasstationhearing.