Prioritize workforce housing with UGB

The vibrant economy of Sisters is at risk. Essential members of our workforce have been priced out of the housing market. Our teachers, firefighters, grocery clerks, and small business employees can no longer afford to live here and own a home. As a result, our community is experiencing disruption.

There is a way to change course. Our City and its leaders can take the bold action required to build housing for our workforce in Sisters. The current Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion process presents a real opportunity to build housing that Sisters residents can actually afford. But we must ensure that producing housing for our workforce is the central value guiding any future expansion.

In the early 2000s, during the previous Sisters UGB expansion, the median income was $45,000, and the cost of a house was $210,000. At that time, it took approximately five times the annual income to own a home. Fast forward to 2024, the median income has risen to $84,000, while the cost of a home has skyrocketed to $850,000. The gap between median income and the cost of a home has ballooned to ten times the annual income. In the early 2000s, members of our local workforce had the opportunity to own a home in our community. Such opportunities are no longer available.

My wife and I have lived in Sisters for 30 years. The last time the city expanded the UGB, the property I co-owned with several other local developers, McKenzie Meadows Village, was incorporated. As part of Sisters’ 2005 Comprehensive Plan’s statement of purpose to “protect the welfare of our citizens,” we committed to building one affordable housing unit for every ten units developed at McKenzie Meadows Village. I’m proud to say we fulfilled that commitment.

As a property developer, Sisters business owner, and member of the UGB Expansion Steering Committee, I firmly believe that producing sufficient housing for our workforce must be the central value guiding our city’s future expansion. And Oregon’s land use laws require us to weigh such values when determining whether and how to expand our city’s UGB.

Oregon’s land use Goal 14 (“Urbanization”) emphasizes the need for cities of all sizes to prioritize housing production to support fair and equitable housing outcomes and access to opportunity. Oregon State House Bill 2001 — passed in 2023 — specifically names equitable housing production as a factor to be considered within Goal 14. Furthermore, the City of Sisters’ latest Comprehensive Plan includes Objective 3.3, which reads: “To ensure that land brought into the UGB to meet the residential needs provides adequate public facilities and a mix of market rate and affordable housing units.”

I urge my fellow Sisters residents to participate in the City’s online UGB Open House. As you do, consider whether and how the areas of expansion presented will result in meeting our dire need for housing. If lands cannot produce adequate and attainable new housing for our workforce, should they be brought into our city? If there is not adequate land available in the five options currently presented, the City must slow down its UGB expansion process to allow time to consider additional alternate sites that will actually produce the housing we need.

I also urge our City Councilors to think ahead. Any new lands annexed into the UGB must prioritize workforce and affordable housing. City Councilors and staff must be bold: any new lands annexed into the UGB must be master-planned with 30 percent required affordable and workforce housing (80 percent Area Median Income and below for rentals; 80 to 130 percent Area Median Income for ownership).

Our workforce deserves to live near their jobs, be close to their children, and thus contribute to a vibrant local economy. In my belief, this is the most critical issue facing our community. We need the right land, sufficient time, and an active community-wide commitment to get this right.