Citizens contemplate where Sisters can grow

Citizens and public officials are continuing to determine where and how Sisters will grow in the future.

The second meeting of the UGB Steering Committee was held on Thursday, July 25, to discuss the Draft UGB Study Area Map. 

The draft land need report, which was discussed in June, determined that the City needs to add about 250 acres to the new UGB. During this meeting, the Steering Committee reviewed the preliminary study area and discussed the characteristics of various parts.

Early in the meeting Scott Woodford, Community Development Director, said that Ian Reid, District Ranger for the USFS, had resigned his position on the committee. According to Woodford, Reid felt there was a conflict of interest with his position.

“He felt that he could serve this process better by being an ex-officio member,” Woodford said.

Woodford said they are trying to get a forest representative onto the committee.

Before presenting the preliminary study area, Matt Hastie and Andrew Parish, from the consulting firm retained by the City to support the UGB amendment process, reviewed the State guidelines for producing the study area. 

The State prescribes the process for creating the preliminary study area, which must include at least twice the amount of land suggested by the land need report. Sisters must consider all land within a half-mile of the existing UGB and “exception areas” contiguous with those lands up to one mile out. In Sisters, these exception areas are primarily existing developments of rural residential. The City may exclude lands from consideration if they are impractical or hazardous to develop, hold significant value as undeveloped land, or are owned by the federal government.

After following the state’s procedure, the City created a study area of all lands within a one-half-mile buffer of the city limits, plus the rural residential areas that extend contiguously to a one-mile radius.

The study area contains over 4,300 acres, of which over 1,900 are rural residential. About 1,300 acres may later be excluded from consideration, including about 1100 acres of National Forest. Even with such exclusions, the study area includes far more than the 500 acres required by the State.

Before inviting the steering committee to discuss various parts of the study area, Hastie and Parish reviewed the State’s priority system for evaluating land suitability.

When evaluating the study area, the State requires that the City must first determine whether there is sufficient rural residential land to cover the needs for the new UGB. Only after exhausting rural residential may the City consider forest or agricultural land. 

The rest of the meeting consisted of discussion of subsections of the study area, and the qualities that might make them suitable for urbanization.

Much of the land in the study area to the south, southwest, and northwest of the current UGB consists of forest and land zoned for exclusive farm use. The study area does not include Tollgate or Crossroads, which are entirely outside the half-mile buffer and are not contiguous to any other rural residential areas leading to the current city limits.

One committee member asked whether it was productive to discuss these areas because they are predominantly forest and likely to be excluded from the UGB. Hastie replied that it “may very well be a moot point, given the size of the rural residential to the northeast of the city.”

Discussion of the northeast parts of the study area began with what the report called Camp Polk Vicinity, which consists of the rural residential land to the north and west of the airport. The northeast extent of this region does not quite reach Indian Ford Meadow or Camp Polk Meadow Preserves. 

Hastie observed that this area may be more difficult to urbanize, due to the presence of existing homes and the “relatively small size of properties, anywhere from one to two acres to about twelve acres, there’s not a bunch of really large properties in this area, and that definitely has an effect on the efficiency of development.”

Committee member Morgan Greenwood suggested that it could be a “nightmare” to redevelop this area.

“These are north-of-million-dollar homes here. Realistically, any developer that was looking to purchase would have to purchase at least three at a time to make development worth its while…it’s a lot of money to do a very little amount of development,” Greenwood said.

The next area discussed was referred to as Barclay Vicinity, located southeast of the airport. Hastie noted that this region includes some natural constraints, including Indian Ford Creek and some steep slopes around McKinney Butte that will limit development capacity. The report adds that lot sizes in this area are larger than in Camp Polk Vicinity.

Committee member John Tehan spoke about the property his family owns in this area. Tehan said, “Back in 2002, we did this same type of study…and it was rated the top three or four lots to come into the city.”

Tehan added that his property has “only two houses on all of those parcels” and while Seed to Table operates on one of their parcels, it is not zoned for farm use only. 

Committee member Brian Metolius commented that this area is “close enough to downtown that you can walk…It’s nearby jobs and businesses. It really feels like that would be a great use of urban land.”

Steering Committee Chair Therese Kollerer seconded the support for this area: “When you have a really valuable home sitting on two acres or five acres, it’s unlikely, or would be very expensive and time consuming, for someone to subdivide that…versus this land that has not been developed yet.”

The final section discussed was called Wildhorse Vicinity, which is east of the city and steep slopes of McKinney Butte. Hastie said, “This area is more hampered by natural resources and constraints than some of the other areas…there are larger lots, and expensive homes.”

Next steps for the project will be to create and evaluate alternative UGB locations within the study area. The next steering committee meeting will likely be in late September.