Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Bring the meeting to order. First on the agenda is approval of minutes August 13th.

I'll make motion. It's been moved as a second.

I second. Although I wasn't here, I did watch the video.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the minutes. Is there any discussion? Seeing as none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. All right, public comment. Is there any members of the public who would like to speak on anything, something that is not on the agenda tonight? Anybody online? All right. Action items. We're having a public hearing on the legislative text amendment to the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan and Title 17 and 18 of the Deschutes County County Development Code. Kyle, go ahead.

Thanks, Chair. For the record, Kyle Collins, Senior Planner. Give me a second. I need to get... Unless I can share my screen. Okay.

and

All right, as the chair pointed out, this is the time and place set for hearing on file numbers 247-26-000439-PA and 247-26-000441-TA concerning text amendments to the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan of 2011 and Title 17 and 18 of the Deschutes County Code. Staff will outline the hearing procedures that will be followed. Firstly, the project website and the full record for all materials submitted as a part of this project can be found at the URL you see on your screen. Don't worry if you don't have a chance to write this down. It'll come up later in the presentation as well. So please note that the Planning Commission will hear oral testimony tonight, receive any written testimony, and consider the testimony submitted at this hearing. The hearing is also being recorded. The Commission may make a decision on this matter today, continue the hearing to a date certain, or leave the written record open for a specified period of time. The hearing will be conducted in the following order. County staff will give a brief report on the issue. City of Sisters staff, as the applicant, will provide an overview of the proposal, and then we will take any testimony from agencies or any interested members of the public. Following testimony, the commission can request staff to answer any additional questions. Please note that this is a hybrid public hearing with both in-person and remote participation. For all of our in-person participants, if you wish to testify, please fill out one of the sign-up sheets and submit it to staff. I think we've covered all of that, but if anyone didn't, you can find those in the corner. After your name is called, please come up to one of the tables at the front of the room before beginning your testimony. And before starting your testimony, please provide both your first and last name as well as your mailing address. For any remote participants, if you want to testify, you must be logged into Zoom or have called in using the Zoom dial-in option. When the chair asks if anyone would like to testify, you will need to use the raise hand feature to notify the commission. To do this, please press the raise hand button on your computer or smart device, or if you've called in, please dial star nine. In addition to any oral testimony, if you have written testimony to submit, please hand it to me directly after you've provided that testimony. And if you are participating remotely, you can submit your written testimony via email to my email address on the screen here. Please note that the chair and staff are responsible for conducting an orderly hearing. Any testimony or behavior which is inappropriate will be addressed and may result in that member of the public being removed from the hearing. Questions to and from the chair may be entertained at any time at the chair's discretion, but cross-examination of people testifying will not be allowed. However, if a person wishes to ask a question of another person during that person's testimony, please direct your question to the chair after being recognized. The chair is free to decide whether or not to ask such questions of the person testifying. Prior to the commencement of the hearing, any party may challenge the qualifications of any commissioner for conflict of interest, and this challenge must be documented with specific reasons supported by facts. Should any commissioner be challenged, the member may disqualify himself or herself, withdraw from the hearing, or make a statement on the record of their capacity to hear and decide the issue. At this time, do any members of the commission need to set forth any information that may be perceived as conflict of interest?

Does any commissioner have anything to disclose? If so, please state the nature and same whether you can proceed.

Does any party wish to challenge any commissioner, the member of the hearing's body based on the conflicts of interest?

As no challenges are presented, the hearing is now open. Staff will proceed with a brief report. Thank you, Chair.

I'll try to make this relatively quick, given that we have quite a bit of testimony expected out of both of these hearings tonight. We've already had a work session on this issue two weeks ago, so a lot of this will be retreading the same ground, but I think it'll be helpful for members of the public to give a general overview. So, the proposal under review is a set of legislative text amendments to the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan and Title 17 and 18 of the Deschutes County Development Code, or our zoning code. The comprehensive plan designations for any property across the entirety of Deschutes County control the specific zoning districts which apply to those properties. So it's really two levels of review. Properties receive a comprehensive plan designation, and then based on that specific comprehensive plan designation, they are assigned a zoning district. And the zoning district itself controls the actual rules and standards that apply on those individual properties. So the proposed amendments that the city has brought forward would update the applicable zones that would be allowed under a sister's urban growth area plan designation. Again, that's the comprehensive plan designation for properties that are inside the city of sister's urban growth boundary. So this is just my cartoon version of basically trying to explain the way all this works is you get a comprehensive plan designation that's captured in the larger Deschutes County comprehensive plan and codified in a big map that we have for the whole county. That trickles down to zoning districts. You can think of things like the rural residential district is one of our larger districts. rural residential subdivision zones. And then finally get development standards that control what you can build there, the sizes of property, setback standards, all of the relevant land use regulations that you might think of. So an example of this is we have the rural residential exception area. Under the Rural Residential Exception Area Plan designation, you have a lot of different zones that could be applied, but one of the more common are rural residential zones or the RR10 zone. We also have things that are described as combining zones. You can think of them as overlay additional sets of standards that apply to specific properties, usually based on some nearby geographic feature. You can think of things like floodplains, or rivers we have certain scenic view sheds in the county associated with certain waterways or road corridors and those are all applied onto individual properties and then based on those overlapping sets of standards the base zone in this case r10 and any combining zones that might apply like our landscape management combining zone you get to allowed uses minimum lot sizes setbacks etc Importantly, under the example I just described, all of those sets of standards are governed by Title 18 of the Deschutes County Code. That's the largest set of our code in general that deals with land use regulations, but we do have others that apply in different areas of the county. One of the other possible comprehensive plan designations that we have is the Sisters Urban Growth Area. This applies to all lands that are located within the City of Sisters urban growth boundary. And again, based on that plan designation, there are different zones that could possibly apply, one of which is the urban area reserve zone or the UAR 10 zone. There is a floodplain-specific zone that is inside the City of Sisters urban growth boundary. And then finally, we have airport overlay zones that apply to properties that are either airports themselves or within a certain distance of the existing Sisters Eagle Air Airport. Importantly, again, all of these specific zone designations are governed by Title 21 of our code, which is a completely separate section, but still covers various land use regulations. So why does this matter and why has this proposal been brought forward? So statewide planning goal five covers natural resources, scenic and historic areas, and open spaces. This is one of the statewide planning goals that we are required as a local jurisdiction to address any time we make different decisions governing land uses regardless of what they are. And it requires us specifically to inventory what are described as significant resources and establish protection standards for those resources that are balanced against other relevant priorities. So we are required to go out, make an inventory of specific natural resources. We have a lot of them in Deschutes County. Some of them are waterways. Some of them are seasonal or jurisdictional wetlands. Some of them are animal migration corridors. We have certain scenic areas, again, associated with places like Highway 126. And based on that inventory, we then come up with a protection program associated with properties that might be affected by those Goal 5 resources. Jurisdictions are, there's usually a base set of standards that are required for certain goal five resources, things like waterways and wetlands in particular, but jurisdictions can add additional goal five resources that other places might not have. Our landscape management zone is probably one of the more prevalent goal five resources that we have here in Deschutes County, and it's somewhat unique to Deschutes County in a lot of ways. Um, so based on all that, we have a pretty significant set of goal five protection standards here in Deschutes county and all of those protection standards, or the majority of those protection standards are implemented primarily through our zoning code. So the rules that apply to goal five resources and how they're protected are all brought about via, in this case, title 18 of our Deschutes county zoning code. And that's been in place for, depending on the resource decades. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, we have several sets of zoning designations in the Deschutes County Code. The first and largest of which that we most of the time are talking about here are Title 18 zones, and they contain effectively all of the standards which protect coal fiber resources across Deschutes County. There are some minor exceptions to that, but by and large, if we're talking about Goal 5 resources, the protection standards that are associated with those are all located within Title 18. We also have a Title 21 set of zoning standards, though, and those, again, apply just to the City of Sisters Urban Growth Area. But it contains none of the zoning districts or standards which protect the county's inventory Goal 5 resources. So there are different sets of rules that apply within the City of Sisters UGB than those which apply outside the UGB. In a nutshell, that's all it boils down to. So under the current framework, it appears that if we were to apply a Sisters Urban Growth Area Plan designation on any properties which currently are protected by Goal 5 resources in Deschutes County, that would serve as a de facto repeal of those existing Goal 5 resources. And the reason why this matters generally is that we have quite a few properties that surround the City of Sisters. A lot of them are already designated as rural residential exception areas. Again, those are governed by Title 18, and we have Goal 5 resources in place and protection standards in place under Title 18. However, in the UGB, which is governed by Title 21, none of those standards apply. And thus, we have no way to enforce a particular protection regime once properties are brought into the City of Sisters UGB. So the city is ultimately mandated to perform its own Goal 5 work, which involves, again, an inventory and a program establishment. But the timeline for when that actual process is put forward is unclear right now. Properties that are brought into the City of Sisters UGB are required to go through that Goal 5 inventory and protection program. But ultimately, any program that is put in place as a replacement by the City of Sisters wouldn't take place until those properties are formally annexed into the city limits itself. So there's kind of a three-step process here where currently the property, any properties surrounding the City of Sisters that might at some point in the future be brought into the UGB, some of those have Goal 5 protections. They have to go through a process to change their plan designation before they can be brought into the UGB. And then the final step is actual annexation and application of city zoning. That middle step, that second step, is where potential problems arise. Because there's no mandated timeline for properties that are pulled into a city's UGB, To actually be formally annexed and given city zoning designations, it appears that there is a period of time where we will have removed Goal 5 protections, and there's no timeline for when they would be replaced by relevant city protections. There's a gap that appears to crop up any time a property that might have a Goal 5 resource is brought into the city limits – or excuse me, into the city's urban growth boundary. So this current proposal seeks to ameliorate that particular issue and allow for certain Title 18 zones to remain as viable zoning districts within the Sisters Urban Growth Area Plan designation. And the specific zones that are being proposed are the R10 zone, the rural residential zone. the multiple use agricultural zone or the MUA 10 zone, floodplain zone, and then three of our combining zones, the landscape management combining zone, the airport safety combining zone, and the wildlife area combining zone. The reason why these particular zoning designations were chosen is they comprise a majority of the properties surrounding the city limits of the existing UGB for the City of Sisters. And so those are the most likely properties to be brought forward into the UGB at some point in the future. An additional set of amendments has currently been proposed that deals with Title 17 of our code. Title 17 deals with land division standards, partition standards, so how properties can actually be divided up if they are allowed to be divided up. The current land division standards for properties outside of the city limits obviously are Deschutes County standards. And that actually would still continue to apply even when properties were brought into the city of Sisters UGB. So again, prior to that annexation step, when properties are given formal city zoning designations, those properties are still subject to Deschutes County land division standards. However, the proposal tonight, one of the proposals, is that any properties that are brought into the City of Sisters UGB would no longer be subject to the Deschutes County Title 17 standards, but rather Chapter 4.3 of the Sisters Development Code, which is the City of Sisters parallel set of regulations dealing with land divisions and partitions and lot line adjustments. It's intended, the whole reason for the Title 17 amendments to propose land division changes There are certain land divisions that are allowed under Deschutes County Code that could potentially complicate future efforts at future urbanization when properties are brought into the UGB but not yet annexed. And it's possible that could cause confusion and consternation for the City of Sisters as they seek to actually expand principally things like roadways, other utility infrastructure. You can imagine that Parcelized lands in general are much harder to bring inside city limits and effectively and efficiently urbanize. So the purpose is to avoid that particular outcome. The proposal is modeled on some existing code language that we already have that deals with the city of Bend. The city of Bend put this in place many, many years ago, and effectively they have exactly the same language, which says once you're inside the city of Bend's UGB, even if those properties have not yet been annexed, they're only subject to the city of Bend's land division standards at that point. Staff's not aware of any specific application of that particular code standard. That doesn't mean that it has never happened. It's just we are unaware that any property is ever brought into the city of Bend's UGB and then decided to go through a land division at that point prior to annexation. It's possible it's happened. It's possible it could still happen at some point in the future. We're just not aware of any exact examples. So I'll talk about other pending proposals, which is the other item that's on the agenda tonight. There are obviously two other pending legislative matters with some relationship to the current process that I'm talking about right now. The first is the City of Sisters UGB amendment, and the second is a set of companion amendments to Title 21, which is the Sisters Urban Growth Area Zoning Ordinance. The City of Sisters and Deschutes County's joint management agreement says that the City of Sisters is ultimately responsible for applying to make specific amendments to Title 21 of the county code, which is why it's not being brought forward to the Deschutes County Planning Commission. Ultimately, that goes through a city-run process. We will bring that back to the Deschutes County Planning Commission, not through a public hearing process, but simply as a review and acknowledgement before ultimately whatever that recommendation that comes from the city is passed to the Board of County Commissioners for a final decision. Importantly, however, I brought this up for general context, but the current legislative amendment proposal needs to be reviewed under its own merits. So even though there's obvious relationship between these two, ultimately they have to be reviewed as separate proposals. And the reason for that is we have certain applicable standards for all legislative amendments that any member of the public could make, including the City of Sisters in this case. And we weigh those against the existing procedural standards that we have in the Deschutes County Code, the relevant standards of the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan, and then any relevant state rules that might apply and the statewide planning goals. So those are really the overarching list of what we have to review this particular proposal. So even though there's a lot of interlocked pieces here, we understand that that can be confusing both for yourselves as decision makers and potentially members of the public. These are separate applications that need to be reviewed as such. There's a lot of uncertainties with this particular proposal. This is not intended to be an acknowledgement by staff that this particular proposal is unfit or could not move forward as proposed. It's just there are a lot of questions that we as staff have that we don't have definitive answers to. So I just want to bring light to some of those. there's numerous matters of first impression that at least we as staff are unaware. Some of potential outcomes for these amendments don't have precedent, at least in Deschutes County findings. No case law that we're aware of or state statutory language. It doesn't mean that there are not answers to these questions. It's just we as staff do not have expertise at this point in time to answer them on the fly. Public and agency comments. We've only received one agency comment so far on this particular proposal. It's from our senior transportation planner. Ultimately, he reviewed these proposals. Why with the transportation planning rule or goal 12 of the statewide planning goals. So no expected changes to transportation impacts associated with these comp plan and text amendments. Public comments, we've received two comments from two individual parties to date. Both of those are split broadly between support and opposition. I won't go into much detail, but you can find all the substantive issues associated with those comments in the record. Next steps. As with all of your public hearings, you have a few options to move forward. You can continue the hearing to a date and time certain if you wish. You can close the hearing today, but leave the written record open to a date certain. You can close the hearing and set a date for deliberations. Or finally, you could close the hearing and commence deliberations tonight. And with that, I will take any questions that you might have.

I don't see any.

Tony, is your hand raised? Nope. Tony.

Oh, Tony, go ahead.

Yep, sorry about that. I started my audio before my video. So, Kyle, you said staff still has some questions. Are there any questions you are specifically researching or seeking legal counsel on at this point?

At this point, I would say we are largely leaning on the applicant to answer many of the questions that were brought up in the staff report that was included in your materials tonight, as well as the staff memo.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. All right. Let's right open the hearing. First, we have Chris Kobach. And on deck? I believe the applicant gets... Oh, okay. Sorry. I was getting ahead of myself. Got to move on to the next hearing.

Okay.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Chair Cyrus, Vice Chair Kelly, and the rest of the planning commissioners. Appreciate your service to the community and your continued attention to this application and the UGB amendment itself. My name is Scott Woodford. I'm the Community Development Director for the City of Sisters. And I have with me tonight our team members in person for this meeting. To my left is Matt Hasty, the project manager from MIG. Missy Ryan of Bateman Seidel is the city's attorney on this project. We also have Andrew Parrish from MIG, should be on the screen and available for questions. And we also wanted to introduce our city manager, Jordan Willow, who's in the audience, if he could just raise his hand. So I want to thank the staff for their time that they've put into this, the crafting of this ordinance, or crafting of this text amendment. We couldn't have done it without them. Once it was identified, there was a lot of coordination between us and the county staff. We are thankful for the good partnership that the City of Sisters has maintained over the years with Deschutes County to help us craft this proposal and something that we think is a great solution to an identified issue. During the workshop, I believe one of the commissioners had asked if staff is, is this a good thing? And this is a good thing. This is going to address a gap in the county's code that potentially could have left some properties that were brought into the Sisters UGB without important environmental protections there. So we're here tonight to propose what we think is a pretty simple and elegant solution to provide that vital protection that we all want, the county wants, and certainly in the City of Sisters best interest to make sure those environmental protections are in place. because those properties are gonna be coming into the city someday and they could be park space, they could be future neighborhoods. So this is definitely in our best interest. And so we think we have a great solution and a great proposal in front of you tonight to correct that issue. so just a little background um this this uh was made aware to us through the ugb amendment review where county staff identified that there was a a potential gap here in the jesus county code and uh It's really not a surprise that there's gaps in codes, especially parts of codes that don't get used very often, including this section, Title 21. Last time it was utilized was back in 2005. And at that time, there were no Goal 5 resources associated with that review. So it probably wasn't brought to anybody's attention back then. And so it's no surprise that nobody knew this was lingering out there. But the good news is that this can be corrected very easily with the solution that we put in front of you. And it doesn't just apply to sisters that applies to the band urbanized area Redmond. These are the same the same issues. It's not just a sister's issue. It's not a sign that that there's an issue with the amendment. It's just merely an oversight, a gap in the county's code. So once we found out and recognized that there was an issue, the city staff, in conjunction with its consultants, prepared text amendments to both the county code and to the comprehensive plan to address it. That was a great fee, great cost to the city, again, correct this issue with the code, but in the interest of time, we felt that we needed to be the applicant so that we could get this forward to the commission and to the board in a timely manner. Kyle did a good job of giving an overview of what the solution is. We'll also go into a little more detail in terms of the mechanics of the proposed code amendment. He mentioned that there's a parallel process going on with the Title 21 portion that is the city's responsibility to process given the structure of the joint management agreement. and uh action has been taken upon taken on that title 21 amendment already the city planning commission has recommended approval and just last night the city council uh uh also reviewed the title 21 amendments and are recommending that the board approve those amendments so the city was uh taking uh care of their their amendments So Kenny Staff has acknowledged that there's some legal uncertainties in the report and have indicated that these are questions that will be the responsibility of the applicant to address, and we will address that as part of our application tonight. It's, as Kyle mentioned, and during our discussions this is this is not the uncertainties are not to be taken as that the staff is don't doesn't think this is plausible or doesn't think this is a uh a effective solution to uh the problem um I think uh has been making this just that these particular uh solutions that maybe not have presidents or have not uh have not been done in this way in Deschutes County it doesn't mean that they are not legal or that they're not they're not fine solutions it just means that they haven't done it that way here in the county it doesn't mean that it hasn't been done in other parts of the state and we'll provide some some details in into why that that shouldn't matter to this this application review uh So it's true that these amendments are separate from the UGB amendments, then they should be judged on their own merits and their own criteria. But they are critical to the UGB amendment process and our timeline. So we would respectfully request that the commission review the criteria and we believe that we've met the criteria and recommend approval to the board. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Matt Pasty to continue on with the presentation.

Is this guy working? No. Oh. All right. Thanks, Scott. And we have a presentation, which I think your staff is going to pull up and we'll kind of walk through it briefly. Not too many PowerPoint slides. I always try to make them not super long. And some of it, actually, Scott will have covered already. I'll cover a little bit of it. And then Missy will wrap it up for us. So really, the purpose of this has already been discussed by Kyle and by Scott. We're really excited. at its heart trying to make sure we continue to protect these gulf 5 resources during that sort of interim time between when land is added to the ugp and when it's annexed to the city so that's really what we're doing here and trying to basically help fix an issue that as scott said is an issue with the county's code but has implications not just in this area but has implications in other areas, too. These specific code amendments are aimed at the area that's ultimately in the sister urban growth area. And it's not just a few properties. This could apply ultimately to any properties, you know, intended to be brought into the UGB at any time. So, it's a pretty, actually has a broad impact. I'll just kind of note that. And again, what we're trying to do is make sure that we can continue, the county can continue to apply essentially the proper overlay zones to the resources in this area after it's brought into the UGB. And then I will also... Just note. Actually, it went out of my head. Sorry. I'll think about it in a minute. So that's kind of it, I think, on this slide. Other folks have talked about this. I will also note that we have a better font. We did not use this font. It must not be in somebody's system. It's like I hate it when the font looks like a typewriter. But anyway, so sorry about that. I won't walk through the proposal here because really Kyle did a great job of this and I don't want to repeat all this. So Kyle's already described the proposal in detail. So I won't walk through that. And at this point, I will turn it over to Missy and she will talk about the questions that staff raised in terms of uncertainties. I will note before she does that, I'll just say a couple of things around that. One is just that Your county has a fairly complicated code. I've worked on codes across the state. And it's not a bad code, but it is complex. And I think that's part of the reason this issue wasn't identified sooner. I mean, the Portland metro area codes are similarly complex. And even they don't take exactly the same approach. So, you know, but I will say that in other communities I have worked in, it is not uncommon to allow multiple base zones to apply to a single comprehensive plan designation. So multiple zones can implement a single plan designation in communities around the state. So I'll just kind of note those couple of things about what I've seen in other communities in the state. And then also, I think Missy might say this too, but just because something hasn't been done in exactly this way in this place doesn't mean it can't be done. So I will stop there and pass the mic down the table.

Hello, commissioners. Missy Ryan with the law firm of Bateman Seidel. We've been assisting the city as special land use counsel. Our firm is land use counsel to many small and medium sized cities in the state, as well as Washington County and Benton County on special matters. I've been a land use lawyer for a long time, even though I know I look really young. I've been practicing land use law for about 22 years. And for almost 20 of those years, I was a Luba referee, Luba board member, it's called now, used to be called Luba referee. So I do have a lot of experience with all of the codes in the state, in all of the cities and all of the counties. And I do agree with Matt, Deschutes kind of takes the prize in complexity and Washington County is a close second. So I'm really here tonight to address some of the uncertainties that the staff report called out. We did submit what we tried to keep a concise six page letter addressing the uncertainties. into the record, and I don't know if you've had a chance to review those. Essentially, I can go through each question if you would like to keep the slides up, or I can answer questions. It's really whatever you prefer. If there isn't a preference, maybe I'll just go ahead and hit the high points. Is there any way we could get the slides up again? Thank you. Oh, god, that font is terrible. can barely see it. So the first one sort of addresses, can Title 18 zones be used for lands located in the Sisters UGB without additional modification to the City of Sisters and the comp plans given their structure? I took a look at this question in detail. I don't see any state law prohibition on it, and I did see that the county has used the mechanism of retention of existing Title 18 zones to assure resource protection in the past in a couple of different decisions that I found. Those are in my memo on page four of the memo. So I'm pretty confident on the answer to that question. The second question, Does there need to be an order of operations, I guess, consistency between the comprehensive plan and the zoning designation? The only real guidance we have on that is Baker versus the City of Milwaukee, which guides that the comprehensive plan and the zoning destination must be consistent, but doesn't otherwise specify how that, the order in which that is to be achieved. There's no state law prohibition on that either. Could we have the next slide? OK, thank you. Question three really relates to Goal 5 protections. which is, can the EC analysis that Deschutes County completed for its Goal 5 resources be relied on for lands now covered by a new comprehensive plan designation? My understanding through many, many, many LUPA cases that involve the Goal 5 rule at 660.023.02.50 says that in order to apply Goal 5, you can apply Goal 5 in many ways and adopt a program in many different ways. And one of the ways you can adopt a program is to continue existing zoning protections until you have developed a different program. So we don't think that that's an obstacle. Next slide, thanks. Do you want to say something about that? Seems like you do.

Yeah, I think what I was going to say, just to add a little bit to that, is that... All right. Yeah, a couple of things, I guess. One, we went through a recent process with you all to update some of your zoning designations and found that we did not need to go back and redo the EC analyses. Because we weren't changing the proposed uses. We weren't identifying new conflicting uses. You have a program in place. And so none of that has changed. So we do not believe any changes or new EC analyses are required because those things are the basis of the EC analysis, essentially in the EC program. So that's all I would add.

The next question relates to the subdivision code. The answer to that question is in the Title 17 amendments, which is how the City of Bend has also accomplished this, managing this potential situation, as well as the existing joint management agreement between the county and the City of Sisters. And the final question is, I'll just loosely call it the order of operations. So the way that we propose that these amendments be processed is that the current amendments that are before you be adopted first. And the statute that addresses post-acknowledgement plan amendments 197, 625, 3, and 4 provide the roadmap for this. And if the text amendments are adopted first and then the UGB amendment is adopted next, that will comply with the statute. This is often done. really, really routinely done in other jurisdictions. I could not come across a Luba case that addressed this issue. And I feel like that might be because it doesn't get appealed on that issue because it's obviously allowed under the statute. So we feel confident that this is allowed. And I'd also just want to note that there have not been any comments from the county. We appreciate that in respect to our answers. And there haven't also been any comments from the public with respect to the answers to these uncertainties. do want to just note that while it's we appreciate the county planning staff addressing these uncertainties I do think it's important to keep the focus on the application at hand because applications always really in truth present matters of first importance because all applications have to be evaluated on their own facts and their own merits and based on the criteria. And so while the uncertainties are important to address, what's really important is for the Planning Commission to evaluate this application against the criteria and determine whether it's met. And that's all I have to say on that. Does anyone have any questions?

I have one. So who would have jurisdiction of these properties, the county or the city?

I can answer that question.

Yeah, thanks.

I'd be helpful for staff. So pursuant to the JMA itself, which is, again, that joint management agreement between the city of Sisters, it is a county code. Title 21 is part of the Deschutes County Code, but all of that code is administered by the city of Sisters, and that would remain unchanged regardless of how this particular set of amendments would be carried forward.

So if somebody outside the sister city limits wants to do a land use action, they would make application to the city?

In the case, a property specifically, just so I'm clear, it would have to be a property included in the urban growth boundary for City of Sisters, but not yet with inside the city limits. So we need to make a distinction there. And pursuant to the JMA, the City of Sisters is ultimately applying a set of Deschutes County standards for any development action on those properties. So it's a little bit of a...

hybrid but the city is ultimately the one that has control over those particular sets of right so they would they would pay the fees and the and they would apply to the city correct and would they also get to vote within the city limit for the city council then i don't know the answer to that question so okay anybody else Oh, Mark, go ahead.

Are there any examples for the city of Benco? This is the subdivisions for people who did end up filing an application for a land use thing to the city. I know you said there were no issues, but were there examples of anything? Or at that point, was it pretty set and standard, like it's going to be urbanized?

Utah.

The only question we really asked, we did check in with the city of Bend just to see if they've had any issues with this process, any difficulties or challenges. And the answer to that was no, it's been working fine. They haven't had any particular challenges or issues. We didn't ask them, hey, can you describe some specific applications and tell us what happened? I am sure there have been some, but none of them resulted in problems or issues from their perspective. So that was the question we asked one of their planners, their planning manager, and that's what we heard.

I think one of the reasons they don't have a lot of, haven't had much problems or much experience with it is because most people choose not to do subdivisions within their property, knowing that their property was in the urban growth boundary and that they might want to start to develop it someday. And if you have small lots right in the middle of your property, like the value of your property, It's really a nice connection to have to prevent it from happening. So, yeah, that's what I wanted to add.

Anybody else? Okay. We're ready to move on? All right. First up, we have Carrie Svanstrom. And on deck is Therese Colliner. I'm having a hard time reading some of the writing on these.

Yeah, you can blame my handwriting or my heritage, either one. Kerry Swanstrom, I recently moved to just outside of Sisters. I'm not in the proposed urban growth but I am in the airport overlay zone. And apparently I'm one evacuation zone away from the city limits. So fairly close. And I used to be a planning director and now have my own consulting firm. When I was a planning director, we had a Excel spreadsheet we kept called errata or code oopses. And there were basically things in the code that we found over time that needed to be changed. Kind of common sense things just to make sure everything works together. And I would describe the natural resources amendments in front of you as one of those. It's simply making sure that the existing natural resource protections stay in place and are continuous throughout time. And I'd also say it's not only for natural resources, but as someone who's been a floodplain administrator and worked on hazard plans, it's also a hazard mitigation to make sure that the floodplain regulations and the airport overlay zones are contiguous throughout time. And frankly, as a homeowner who may one day be in an urban growth boundary amendment, I would want to make sure that the protections that my property and my neighbors have and are held to that are currently in place would remain in place until any time a property was annexed. It's simply a no change for the property owners within any urban growth boundary or potential future urban growth boundary. So I am supportive of that. And then lastly, in terms of the subdivision, I definitely appreciate the joint management district system. instead of just commenting and hoping that the county helps implement your future planning this is a way for the city to actually have control over what would eventually be in the in the in the city and make sure that it respects any specific planning or uh transportation impacts that may have with that so i i'm supportive of that as well thanks and then on deck is ben welsh

Hello, Chair Cyrus, Vice Chair Kelly, and other members of the Planning Commission. I'm Therese Kohler from Sisters, and I was the chair of the UGB Steering Committee in 2024-25. Thank you for considering these amendments and, in general, the Sisters UGB amendment. The work and study phase by the community of Sisters has been done. We believe these specific proposed amendments are sound and well researched by Sisters and Deschutes County staff. And I personally appreciate that both of those staffs work together to hammer this out. We all want to protect Goal 5 resources. And we urge that these amendments be approved ASAP. Thank you.

Thank you. And on deck is Chris Kobach.

Ben Walsh, 16074 Parrot Huntington Road. Chair Cyrus, commissioners, thanks for your service to the community. The opportunity to address the issue before you this evening. I'm not a land use attorney or a land use planner, so I can only offer a lay perspective.

Apologies.

I can only offer a lay perspective on the amendments in front of you tonight, but they seem to be a fairly straightforward matter of bureaucratic administrative housekeeping. And so I urge you to support the amendments. haven't heard or seen any reason not to the only one that can come to mind from my admittedly lay perspective would be to obstruct the timely completion of the city's ugb expansion process so i urge your support thanks for your time Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Cyrus, members of the Commission. Chris Kobach, I'm at Buchanan-Schmidt-Kobach, 9th, Northwest Newport. This is a better microphone. I'm here on behalf of McKenzie Meadow Village LLC, MMV, and I've testified before. The first thing I want to point out is I've submitted a letter today in response to the issues. So I just want to make sure that's in the record, Kyle, did you get it?

It is.

So I have two letters and I apologize for that, but there's a lot of issues here and it's like peeling an onion. So I did one letter and I started thinking about the questions and I had to do another letter. And the first issue I want to reinforce is I think the process we're doing should be a quasi-judicial process. This is a unique set of facts. It's in the city's application. It's not broad, widespread. I've addressed it in my letter. There's case law explaining what is a quasi-judicial decision, what is not. And the importance is individual notice should have been required for these property owners who are impacted by these proposed amendments. We applaud the city for trying to protect the resources. We just think this is not the right way to do it. And I'm going to get to that now. But before I do that, the city said in their application, contrary to what they said tonight, this is not an issue of countywide impact. Today, they told you it was. In their application, they're saying it's not. So think about that when you consider whether owners should have been given individual notice of this application. Now, on the substance in my short time, one thing I want to point out is when the county goes through a plan designation and a zoning process, what they do is they compare the zoning to make sure it's consistent with the designated plan. And here, if you do that, we have the UAR 10 zone with the purposes to preserve open space for future urban development. And yet they're proposing to change the UAR zone for this property to MUA 10 and RR 10. Well, as I point out in my letter, those allow cluster developments and plan developments which impede future development. And it's important here because contrary to what Mr. Woodford said, a lot of owners of this property are saying we're not coming in. So these cluster developments are going to be very attractive to people that have this property, and it's going to be inconsistent with the whole purpose of Title 21. The city hasn't even addressed that in their application. So you're going to have people, you're going to tell them, and this gets to the subdivision thing, which is a big problem. You're going to say to people, you have MUA 10, you have RR 10 county zoning on your property. But you got to go through. So you have cluster developments. You have planned unit developments. And as I point out in my letter, those are very attractive, marketable products. But you got to go to the city subdivision standards, and you're not going to get to do them. So you're going to have some people that own RR10 property that are on this side of the UGB line. They don't get to do cluster developments because they got to go to the city process. You've got a person, same owner on the other side, same zoning on their property. They get to do cluster development. I think that creates an equal protection problem and many other problems. So, oh, and the ESEE, there's an example of this. When the county, there's a case on this. There are new uses introduced. Right now, under the current application, all of this property would be subject to the UAR 10 zoning. Now, the county or the city wants to rezone and open up these cluster developments. Those are new uses that will be allowed in this property. The county has already found, and Luba has agreed with him in the case I cited, when you introduce new uses to a zone that weren't allowed before, you have to do a new ESEE. You have to. Luba has said that, and they haven't done it. So I think that's another major problem. I am out of time. I'm actually over time. I would like an opportunity to keep the record open to respond to the city's memo because it wasn't in the portal when I looked last this evening. And so I'd like to keep the record open so that we can respond to that. And these are really important issues. So we'd respectfully request that the commission grant that request. Thank you.

Are there any other comments? Anybody online? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Come up. It may have got on the wrong pile. It probably happened. Anyhow.

Kerry Tosolo, PO Box 730 and Sisters. My family owns a property on the corner of Camp Polk Road and Barclay. My father purchased that property 40 years ago. At the time, I asked him why he bought that property. He said that when the city decides to expand, which they will, it's going to go that direction. I don't think he realized what happened after his lifetime, but he was right. The city is going to grow that direction. I'd like to dispel some of the rumors going around about maybe some property owners not be willing to develop. I don't know who those people are. I've never heard them identify themselves. But I can tell you that we have met with multiple owners in that area that represent more than 100 acres in the proposed UGB, they're all long-term Sisters residents for decades. They're all expecting to be in the UGB. They're all willing to develop their property as well. We've also been approached by Brooks Resources, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. They're really quality projects. One thing about Brooks Resources, a former member of the Sisters Planning Commission, having a master plan walk in the door is really beneficial to the process. So I hope that can move forward with that. I'd also like to say the reason we need to move forward with this now is the Sisters School District. My wife and I put five kids through Sisters School District.

Sorry, Jessica. Can I just ask a quick clarifying question? Sure. Is your testimony about the 17 and 18 amendments, or is it about the second item on the agenda, about the UGB?

I thought the first one is the UGB, about moving forward the UGB.

The only reason why I interrupt you, I hate to interrupt you, is that I want to make sure that your comments get counted as part of the public record for the UGB amendment. And right now we're still having a hearing about the... Thank you, Jessica.

I don't want to... Oh, thank you for doing that. I am talking about the UGB. I thought that's what you were doing right now.

No, we're doing the text amendments only.

Can I hold this for a second? I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I'll repeat myself later.

Great, thanks. Good catch. Thanks.

Thanks.

So is there anybody else that has testimony regarding to the text amendment? Okay. Nobody online? Great. Okay. So I guess what's your guys' pleasure?

Chair, I might suggest if you would allow it, perhaps giving the applicant a chance to rebut to some of the issues that were raised by the testimony. Okay.

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

I'll say a couple of things, then I'll pass it down to either Scott or Missy. They'll grab what I missed. I think the first thing I'd say is we're not proposing to rezone any land. We are proposing to retain the same zoning. So to sort of say we're proposing to rezone and introducing new uses is not accurate. Second, when I said this is of countywide significance, what I'm saying is This could be a model for use in other parts of the county. So that's the first thing I mean by that. And two, this could apply because it is focused on the sisters area and any area, any part of the area around sisters that could be added to the UGB in the future. It does potentially affect a pretty large area. It's not just kind of a few pieces of property here. So those are a couple of points I would make and I'll pass it down. And then if these guys want me to say anything else, they'll tell me.

Thank you. Missy Ryan from Bateman Seidel for the record. I wanted to just briefly address, I think I heard an argument that the counties is incorrectly processing this as a quasi-judicial amendment and I'm sure you're all intimately familiar with the difference between a quasi-judicial and a legislative amendment, but this is very clearly a legislative amendment that, as Matt just said, is a large county policy that may apply to a set of properties, but will apply to all of the Sisters UGB at any time in the future. This is an argument that I'm really familiar with from all of my time at Luba. It comes up from time to time, and it usually comes up from a party who's challenging a decision, who does not have a lot of other solid arguments. One way that this comes into play is that the concept of prejudice or harm to the person that's making the argument comes into play. And typically at LUVA, when we see an argument that a legislative amendment should have been processed as a quasi-judicial amendment, it's because it would have required some specific notice to property owners, like within 250 or 500 or 700 feet. And typically, the person who's making that argument, the specific person has to establish that they were harmed by the failure to process this correctly. So it's not something that typically gets any traction. The main point is that I did a quick review of Luba's cases and my cases and Almost none of those arguments were ever successful and I don't think in this particular circumstance it would be successful. These are comprehensive plan text and legislative text amendments. Finally, I would like to request on behalf of the city that the record not remain open tonight and that the record be closed and that the planning commission proceed to deliberations either tonight or at its September 10th meeting.

Any questions? I have one clarifying question. So if this passes, will there be any impact or changes to the code that those people will be having to work under? Or is it an identical code transferred from county to city?

Oh, it will be a citizen that they have currently, because we're not, that wasn't the reason 17 is approved. There could be some changes to how the subdivisions are processed. There would be, there would be changes, but otherwise, otherwise it would be the same use the same standards.

I guess for me it brings up a procedural process question of a measure 49 or 59 as far as notice, etc. If in fact there are any changes that could be considered a down zone or any change to what they would have including a different price structure for having to make application with the county versus city. Are the fees the same between county and city for somebody, an applicant that would have to go in?

Chair Cyrus, I think you're talking about ballot measure 56 notice, I believe. And we did evaluate this with the county and concluded that measure 56 notice isn't triggered because of the specific language of measure 56 and how it defines rezone property.

You're correct. 56 and the 49 claims that would follow.

Around in 1998, I remember. I might be able to provide a little bit of clarifying information. information here, because I think we're starting to mix up a little bit of the UGB amendment process and these text and comp plan amendments. So it'll be helpful to kind of just... The specific amendments that are proposed here today are just changes to certain sections of Title 18, Title 21, and Title 17, which, as Scott pointed out, may have potential effects on land division standards that would be applied to those properties. The same is true of the comp plan amendments. They basically just say that these zoning standards can now be brought into the city of Sisters UGB. The specific question of should we provide notice to properties wherein that would happen would occur at the time that the actual comprehensive plan designation itself would change. So at some hypothetical point where a property were brought into the UGB, that would require change to their comp plan designation and thus they would receive notice. And understanding that, yes, you're now being affected by potentially a separate set of standards. Okay.

I appreciate it because, yeah, this sets the foundation. The actual trigger point would be the bringing into the NGP. Correct. Okay.

Good question.

Anything else?

I think we're good. Good. Thank you. Okay. Appreciate it.

So we're ready to move on now. What's your pleasure?

I'll make a motion then we can discuss it. So we've had requests to leave the record open. We've had requests to close the record so that we can start deliberations tonight or at our next meeting on September 10th. The staff ordinarily needs a good amount of time to get the packet together, which for September 10th would... Sorry, this is a really long motion. I'm thinking out loud. Basically, I'd like to propose that we leave the written record open for enough time, which we can ask the staff in a second, enough time that the staff can prepare the packet for us to have ready on September 3 and commence deliberations on September 10.

Is there a second?

I second that.

So how long, like, just to get the motion a little bit more specific, how long would staff need to, like, how long can we leave, I know it can only be a few days, leaving the written record open.

It's roughly a week.

Well, but they would need to have. You can leave the record open for as long as you'd like in this case. Okay, and we could still get the info we need by September 10th.

So your packets are ultimately uploaded on the Thursday preceding that particular meeting. So in this case, it would be the 3rd of September. I would likely need – it's going to depend on the information that comes in during the open record period. It's hard for me to say exactly how long that would take, but probably two to three days, realistically. And that is a crunch timeline, but it's possible.

So maybe to get the motion slightly more specific, we would leave the written record open until Monday, August 31st, which is this coming Monday at the close of... the business day and commence deliberations on September 10th. And I am prepared to say a few words while I'm making the motion.

What's that?

I'm prepared to say a few words of why I'm making the motion. All right. Yep. OK. So just to honor both requests, we can move along expeditiously still on September 10. But it does give anyone who still has some lingering thoughts on their mind a chance to submit those comments in writing so that we can read them before the meeting on September 10. And I'm just kind of hoping to honor both of those requests.

Any other comments? Yeah. Commissioner Williams.

And I agree with Commissioner Kuris. It also allows, there were some records I saw that came in today. And if everyone hasn't had a chance to read that, we can read that information and still ask a question or follow up on it with it being public information to all of the commissioners. Like I can submit something in writing if I needed to.

Anybody else?

And then I was also going to say by pushing the deliberations to the 10th, it allows us to continue the public hearing where I do see that we have a decent sized crowd and I'm sure some of those folks would like to talk as well.

Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries.

Okay.

All right. Next item on the agenda.

Yeah. Give me one second.

Again, for the record, Kyle Collins, senior planner.

Share my screen again. Alright, I think this is probably the item most people are in here for tonight. This is a continued public hearing regarding the sisters urban growth boundary expansion proposal. I'm going to try to keep this very, very brief because this will be the third hearing that we've done on this matter. So just catch up for everybody listening. So the planning commission is meeting on June 25th. Ultimately, they voted to reopen the public hearing following an initial closure of the public record back in June. That hearing was reopened on July the 9th. And after July, the 9th meeting, the commissioners ultimately voted to continue the hearing to tonight's meeting. So we're just continuing that. Proposal the record has been open this entire time. We've received comments throughout. The project website and the full record for this proposal, and all the materials can be located at the website you see on the screen here. And again, just to remind everybody, this is a hybrid hearing. So if you want to submit any in-person testimony, please fill out one of the sheets that you can find at the side of the room. And before starting your testimony, provide your first and last name and your mailing address. And if you're a remote participant, you have to be participating via Zoom. You can either dial in or the standard way from an electronic device. Please use the raise hand feature if you want to provide testimony once we arrive at that portion of the hearing or dial star nine if you're remote and want to provide testimony. So the proposal, just so everyone is clear, the amendment would modify the existing Sisters Urban Growth Boundary and add approximately just shy of 320 acres to the east of the current urban growth boundary. It's all north of Highway 126 and south of the Sisters Eagle Airport. Here's a map of what that proposed expansion area looks like. Again, you can see the Sisters Airport in the upper left corner. You can see Highway 126 at the very bottom of the picture. So public and agency comments. During the initial open record period, we received three comments, which is the whole reason that the record was reopened and the hearing was reopened. We received comments from three state agencies. They had the opportunity to provide some testimony at the July the 9th meeting. Those comments were from the Department of Land Conservation and Development, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Oregon Department of State Lands. Those comments were largely concerned with the inclusion of lands within the proposed UGB area that were adjacent to both White Shoes Creek and Indian Ford Creek. White Shoes Creek and Indian Ford Creek are one of those designated Goal 5 resources that we talked about extensively in the previous item. And they're located and identified inventoried within the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan. And there are a number of different zoning designations which apply protections to those Goal 5 resources. Here on the photo on the screen, you can see in the upper corner, that's Indian Ford Creek and the associated wetlands that appear with that waterway. And on the bottom, you can see White Shoes Creek and the associated wetlands adjacent to that waterway. White Juice Creek in particular has some pretty extensive floodplain areas as well. You can see those on the map here. All of these resources, either the floodplain or the wetlands themselves, do extend into several of the properties that are slated for inclusion as a part of the UGB proposal. So it raised some pretty serious concerns to us as county staff, and we've talked about that at length, but just to go over it again in a little bit more detail, we have existing Goal 5 protections in place at the county level for these properties, but it's unclear what happens to properties that are brought into the UGB but not yet annexed into the city. Again, as we discussed in the previous item, it appears that there would be a gap in protection if properties were brought into the UGB but not yet annexed. We don't have a way to maintain our existing Goal 5 protections. And there's no definitive timeline for when properties are required to annex into the city. And so there may be an indefinite period where Goal 5 protections are lost for these properties. Okay. So that leaves the city ultimately with two options. The properties have to be annexed immediately along with the establishment of a replacement Goal 5 program by the city for all those affected properties. The city will ultimately be required to do that once properties are brought into the UGB itself. But the actual standards that they put in place, the protection standards, wouldn't apply until the properties are annexed. The second option that they have is that they have to maintain the existing protections under the Jesus County framework, but those would only be in place again prior to annexation. So just to reiterate this in as simple a way as I possibly can, it appears that the rezoning of the property is from their existing designation, which is primarily rural residential 10 or R10 to the UAR 10 zone, which is one of the current interim holding zones that we have in the city of Sisters. urban growth area. They're governed by different titles of the Deschutes County Code, and it looks like it would effectively remove those Goal 5 protections in place if we were to move forward with a rezoning of those properties containing Goal 5 resources. Some public comments. We've obviously received quite a lot of public comments on this proposal. There's been 99 to date, including 63 in the initial open record period and an additional, I believe, 13 in the the reopened public record period. A majority of those comments have been supportive of the proposal, but there have been a significant number of comments that have raised concerns with the proposal. So those supportive comments have largely pointed out the fact that there's been extensive public engagement across the entirety of the UGB proposal, even before it got to a formal application with Deschutes County. This process actually started years in the past. It's been going on for, I believe, four years at this point. And a lot of people pointed out that they believe it would support the immediate needs of the city to supply particularly housing, but also employment opportunities and some public facilities, open spaces, park spaces, things of that nature. They also point out that if the current UGB process doesn't conclude by July 1st, there are new state rules that would apply and effectively require the city to reignite this entire process. They would have to redo their land needs analysis and submit a brand new UGB proposal. It's unclear how long that process would take, but given the extensive work that's already gone into this current proposal, you can imagine it would take quite a while. They point out that the selected alternative is already adjacent to the existing UGB and existing infrastructure on the ground there. It's composed of parcels that largely have low-density rural residential uses, and they feel those are more compatible with properties that should be brought into the UGB and ultimately urbanized. There are some concerns that any attempts to include the McKenzie Meadows or the MMV property in the proposed UGB amendment would undermine the mansion due to a variety of unresolved legal issues, access concerns, and natural resource constraints. I won't belabor that point or go into details, but we've talked a little bit about that in a staff memo, and there are plenty of comments that address these particular concerns. They also point out that there would be a loss of natural resources by those that are opposed to this current amendment, loss of open spaces and small town values as the city expands. There's concerns regarding is there actual viable transportation connections to these properties to the east of the city if the UGB does expand in that direction. There are concerns on there probably will need to be access points to Highway 126, for example, and how do you provide safe and adequate access principally over White Juice Creek is one of the major concerns that's been brought up there. There's also a lot of concerns brought up that the properties that would be brought into the UGB wouldn't be developed in a timely enough manner to actually supply the housing that the city says this land is intended to be used for primarily, although there are some commercial opportunities available there as well. They also point out that there are a bunch of unknowns regarding legal encumbrances on some of the properties, principally in the Barclay Meadows area that are slated for inclusion. A number of CC&Rs, covenants that exist for these properties that might potentially cause challenges in future urbanization efforts, even if properties were brought into the UGB. Their feelings that community engagement efforts didn't adequately touch all parts of the community or ignored certain community sentiments. And some people have expressly pointed out that they'd like to see the MMV, the McKenzie Meadows Village property specifically included in the UGB alternative, and they pointed out a variety of reasons for that. And then finally, they pointed out some concerns that the properties aren't adjacent to some existing city infrastructure, primarily things like schools and the commercial core of downtown. They feel that there's too much of a distance and a disconnect between the properties that might be included in the UGB and the existing sort of urban core of the city of Sisters itself. Last set of comments I'll take don't necessarily fall in the supportive or opposed camp. They're just sort of miscellaneous comments that wanted to be put out there. They wanted to see a desire to maintain the existing character of the city, regardless of which way the UGB expands. Question on the timing of future development of properties that are ultimately brought into the UGB. And then finally, some generic concerns regarding the loss of natural resources or open spaces or impacts to property values, both on properties that might be included in the UGB and those that are just outside of whatever that future UGB boundary looks like. A lot of concerns around wildfire impacts as the city grows farther into the wildland-urban interface or the WUI, particularly as they move into more forested areas. And then finally, just a general need that affordable workforce housing is desperately needed in the City of Sisters. And regardless of what transpires with the UGB, hopefully it can address some of those concerns. I'll speak to what we just talked about in the previous item. There's obviously some additional amendments. City of Sisters has submitted a package of amendments specifically to address those goal five gaps that I talked about a little bit earlier in the presentation. Please again note that those items are not under direct consideration, even though we're talking about the UGB amendments, but they're just provided here for additional context. Those amendments again would just update the list of zones as allowable zoning designations for properties that are brought into the City of Sisters UGB. So no specific changes are being applied to any specific property as part of that proposal. It's more like changing the menu of possible options. We already talked about urban holding zones a lot, so I won't go into that anymore. Next steps, as with all of your hearings, again, you can continue the hearing again to a date and time certain in the future. You can close the hearing tonight and leave the written record open to a date and time certain. You can close the hearing and set a date for deliberations, or you could close the hearing and commence deliberations tonight. With that, I'll answer any questions you might have.

Any questions? I don't see any.

So again, unless you have questions for me, it might be over to the applicant.

Absolutely.

Good evening again Scott Woodford. I'm the director for the city of sisters. I've been told I've been fucking too close to the microphone so I'm going to try to adjust that. Let me know if you can't hear me for some reason. So this is, I believe, the fourth hearing that we've had on this application, so we won't go into a complete reiteration of our previous presentations, but we will touch on some key points that have been brought up in the staff report and some of the other public comments, so we'll make sure that we address those. Through this process, like I said, we've made multiple presentations. We've addressed multiple things. You've heard a lot of testimony, both written and oral, and the Planning Commission has asked lots of good questions. I've asked the applicant to help you understand what the proposal is and what the relevant criteria are for review. And so we've been up for a while. So I think there aren't any new questions, new information that we haven't already heard several times over. Because prior to this venue, we have been having multiple hearings with the city planning commission and the city council, multiple public meetings, multiple standing committee meetings. So no room for looking or no room for voting. anything new that we haven't already discussed and analyzed and addressed in some manner. So we've been working closely with, since we submitted this application on February 11th, we've responded to lots of inquiries, lots of questions that have been raised by the plan staff. And in all cases, I believe we've responded to what the questions are and provided information to support the record for the questions that they brought up. And I want to thank you for that because ultimately, I think it's made it a better application. But this, we've had it for a while. We mentioned the new questions that were identified in the curve that we discussed earlier, that we have took years to move this process to quickly come up with a solution to help address that in the previous hearing. Even though it's a little hard to get your head around because I think it involves so many different titles and chapters of the code, the solution itself is really, like I said, a pretty simple, elegant solution that really improves the situation and increases the neural protections, and that's a good thing. So, like I said, we haven't been information or information through this process that we haven't already shared our partnership with the state and the submission of their comments comments and in the letter, their willingness to work with us. It was clear in that letter that their expectation was that we didn't need to do our go 5 analysis before about after it's clearly stated in the. letter and the record that was smuggled from Department of State lands and we followed up with them just to make sure that was the case. The only reason for the letter was to just as a courtesy letter to remind the city that that's something that they will be expecting after the UGB is adopted because in their experience many communities forget to do that step around the state. So that was the sole purpose of submitting that letter. It's just a general reminder to do that. and also extending a willingness to partner and to assist with that process. So we see those letters as more helpful and not raising new information and certainly not raising any red flags or concerns with our proposal. And I just want to reiterate that this is how much of a community-driven process this has been. It really started over six years ago, and it started with the update to the Sisters Comprehensive Plan, which first identified the need for this expansion. And that was adopted in 2021, and here we are, close to 2027. We're just now getting to a UGU amendment adoption. It shows you how long these things take. But there are a lot of important steps to go through to get to this point. including the measures process that we went through that proposed and adopted a lot of changes to our development code to encourage infill so that the actual ask of our amendment was less than what we're proposing today. So we can get more of those units in the city. And then finally, the start of the NGVM process in spring of 2024. And Council, one of the primary tenants of that process was to make sure that there was a robust and intensive public outreach program because we have a very engaged community. And so it also involved hiring really good land use consultants who've done these types of amendments all over the state and are award-winning for their efforts. to help us guide through that process because it's not something that we do every day as a staff, as a planning staff. And so that process has led us to today and it's been a systematic approach in determining what the preferred UGB boundary is. And so we are now the last quarter of 2026 and moving closely into 2027. And it's been well-documented that the state's given us plenty of time and grandfathered us in under the existing regulations, but if we don't get local adoption before the end of the year, that deal no longer holds, and we would need to basically try to pass this over with the new rules that the state has put in place. So we are, that's why we started early. We started in February because we knew that there would be some twists and turns, and we hope to get to the end line before the end of the year. We will follow the process and step it away, but the state is laid out. We carefully consider all properties around the existing city of Sisters Boundary in a very democratic and transparent manner. And the concept before you is the concept that the community has said that it wants. So we respectfully recommend that the commission acknowledge this effort and then find that this proposal complies with all the applicable criteria and recommend approval so we can move on to consider original final approval by the Board of County Commissioners. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Scott. Missy Ryan, Bateman Seidel for the record. I don't have much to add to that. Again, the city submitted a letter last Friday evening, tried to keep it short to about six pages. Mainly what I wanted to emphasize from that letter and then answer any questions is the role of the planning commission here is to evaluate the city's application for its UGB expansion as it was submitted. We all see proposals that we, because we are very, all of us very smart, think could be better or improved, but really this is about the city's self-determination, and so we're asking the Planning Commission to respect the city as a government-to-government partner and evaluate the city's application as it has been submitted and recommend approval to the Board of Commissioners. i also want to answer any questions that anyone has about the letter that was submitted october august 21st in connection with the ugp application and that's all i have all i have for tonight so far so real quick clarification you indicated that this is the city's self-determination but these properties are not within the city limits That is correct, Chair Cyrus. The city's self-determination is that the city has been tasked with providing enough housing to meet the needs that have been identified through all of its studies. And so the city needs to determine where the properties are going to be that come into the UGB. And it's really going to be the city that has to plan for the infrastructure and pay for the infrastructure and support the residents of the city. And so we're asking for that comity, if you will.

Thank you.

And I am going to finish this up by running through another PowerPoint. I'm going to go through it fairly quickly because I think Scott's talked about some of these things. But this is another one that you guys have on your system. And if the font's ugly again, I'm really sorry. So let's apologize right now. We'll see what it looks like. Oh, it looks better so far. So far. We'll see what the next slide looks like. All right. I keep forgetting I'm the one that has to advance these. Ah, it is much better. So, excellent. So, I'll just briefly talk about an updated application because we've made some proposed changes to the original application. I want to respond to some of the things that you all raised at the previous hearing. and then just speak a little bit more about how this proposal is consistent with the approval criteria, particularly the statewide criteria for how to determine or structure a proposed UGB amendment and how to evaluate different alternatives. So won't we previously talked about all these things we've been doing and Scott talked about this, so I won't talk about that one. This is just kind of a reminder of what we're proposing in terms of where it is, the number of acres. both gross acres and net developable acres. And it does have land in it, and we talked about this previously, that would continue to be conserved as natural resources. And so those aren't part of the net number. Those have already kind of been backed out of that. And it does, and part of those areas are in the Indian Ford Creek and Whitechess Creek corridors. this is just kind of giving you a picture of zoning within the city and then the current zoning of the proposed expansion area so as you've heard tonight we are currently proposing to retain the existing zoning so our previous proposal was to rezone this to the uar That was what we understood, you know, was typical in the county when you're proposing a UGB. We're proposing changing that to deal with all the issues that we spent the first, the earlier hearing talking about. So it did change that aspect of our proposal, but the other aspects of our proposal are unchanged in terms of the boundary of the proposed expansion area. So, a few things again that came up last time, I'll try not to repeat things that Scott already talked about, but I will just kind of reiterate. The information that was brought to you by DLCD and ODF&W and DSL, that was not, as Scott said, new information to us. We were showing maps of those same areas throughout this process. We evaluated those areas throughout the UGB process. So I just kind of want to make that clear. And they were things we looked at in evaluating different UGB expansion area alternatives. And we were showing those resources on our maps and had a lot of discussion with community members about the importance of protecting those resources. So I just want to note that. And Scott talked about that as well. ESEE analysis, that term has gotten kind of thrown around in a number of different ways. There is a Goal 14 ESEE analysis, which we did conduct as part of this process. And there's a subsequent ESEE analysis that gets conducted when you're applying a new set of zones, which is not what we're doing now. I will note that in conversations with Department of Land Conservation and Development staff, they stated clearly that we have done the Goal 14 analysis. And in their opinion, we have done it correctly and accurately. So they stated that to us in a recent meeting with them. People brought up the issue of CC&Rs. I always forget. Covenants, conditions, and restrictions. Thank you. I always forget that one. So this was also a factor that we looked at in our alternatives analysis as it relates to the efficient urbanization of land. And all CC&Rs are not... the same, and so we looked at the different levels of CC&Rs. We also received direct guidance from DLCD. You can't not include something simply because there are CC&Rs, but you can balance that information with the other factors here, and that is what we've done. And then finally, people have talked about property or interest or whether or not someone is prepared or ready to develop their property within the next several years. This is a 20 year amendment. And so we have to think about this in that 20 year time, not the next five years. However, I think you may hear from other folks tonight that and you have heard. You'll hear from him probably again that there are a number of property owners who are interested in developing in the shorter term. And those number of acres would be enough to meet that shorter term land supply or housing supply. So I'll just note that. And you kind of see this photo. This is from one of the community meetings we had. We had 270 people there. We had kind of a pool going on how many people might show up. No one picked over 250 because Sisters had never had a meeting where 250 people showed up. So I think it just goes to the strength of the meeting we had. And many, many of those people were property owners within the larger UGB study area. So I just want to note that. And then finally, there was a question about would the city proceed with condemnation or forced annexation of properties brought into the city. Annexations to the City of Sisters are voluntary. They're property owner initiative. The city has no plans to go out and do that. Rarely uses that kind of procedure or what's called eminent domain to compel people to do something with their property. the only exception i think could be in terms of locating a transportation facility that's of community-wide significance city of sisters and other cities the first thing they do and they do this for as long as they can is negotiate with property owners and i will say from my experience on these kind of things nine times out of ten that is the successful tactic and approach and it's pretty rare that any city then has to resort to condemnation. So I'm just going to say that in terms of that is not something that happens very often and it's not something the city is planning on doing. And then I don't think I need to say too much about this because we've kind of already talked about this. I will note there was a comment about, you know, the timing for when the city addresses Goal 5 retirements is unclear. I would say it's clear that the city applies its protection program once properties are annexed into the city. The other thing that's clear is the city is obligated to conduct a Goal 5 inventory or a local wetlands inventory. Wetlands are a Goal 5 resource, though they are required to do that between the UGB amendment annexation. So the city is fully prepared to do that. So those parts, I think, are clear. And I think until that time, the county's protections would continue to apply as we talked about earlier. That's my understanding anyway. Applicable review criteria. I will not read all these. We talked about these last time. But I will briefly kind of talk about the criteria that are kind of at the heart of the statewide planning process. The Goal 14 urbanization factors. They are efficient accommodation of land needs, orderly and economic provision of public facilities and services. the ESEE criterion, environmental, social, energy, and economic consequences, and then compatibility with farm and surrounding farm and forest resources. So I'll hit these really quickly. We did do a detailed Goal 14 analysis of different expansion area alternatives. We submitted all of our findings, all of this analysis to DLCDE. They did not raise any substantive issues to date about this. They noted some... provisions in OERs that we needed to look at just related to that change in rules that happens around, you know, January of this coming year just to make sure we were citing the right rules. But those were not substantive changes to the analysis we've done. So this is like a graphic from a huge spreadsheet we used to go through the Goal 14 analysis. This is like a tiny little part of that spreadsheet. So this is just to say we did a very thorough Goal 14 analysis. And some of the things we found in terms of how this proposal addresses those criterion or criteria, excuse me, in terms of efficient accommodation of land needs. This is a single contiguous area, mostly undeveloped. Yes, there are properties with homes in this area, but those properties are on average fairly large or undeveloped. It does contain land in the Sun Ranch Business District and along Highway 126, which provides opportunities for future commercial or industrial development, which is an identified need within the city's planning documents. And it contains land that's suitable for parks and passive open space uses. And a school. And so that's another comment is, well, this isn't close to schools. There's the assumption and the plan that a school would be constructed in this area to help serve residents in this area in the future. um orderly and economic provision of public facilities and services all of the properties are west of indian ford creek so we don't have to cross that creek corridor to get water and sewer facilities to those areas existing utilities and streets stub to this area there is there would be a need for additional public facilities and that's something we've taken an initial look at, and the city has a grant to look at that in more detail, which is not something that's typically done at this stage, but afterwards once the area is brought into a UGB. So that's clearly something the city has to do, will do, is planning to do, and already has some funding from the state to do. ESE consequences, again, we do need to look at this at a high level when we're comparing different expansion area alternatives. And we did look at that and there are sort of some findings related to the proposal. One, this area is close to downtown. and contains land suitable for new parks and open spaces and allows people fairly short access to downtown. It has potential impacts to the Sisters Eagle Airport, but there are restrictions in place that help protect the airport and protect future residents. So, that zoning is there. And there are sensitive natural resources and wildlife corridors present. And that can be sort of a good thing and a bad thing. I think in a good way, the city is committed to protecting those resources and those resources provide amenities for people in the future. And that was really important to the community when we were looking at these alternatives. And those potential impacts will be addressed by design requirements and other planning processes. And that's something the city is really anxious to get underway on, frankly. And then finally, in terms of farm and forest compatibility, most of the land in this area is bounded by essentially rural residential areas on one side and urban areas on the other side. So there's very little area that's directly adjacent to farm and forest other than the areas south of Highway 126. And Highway 126 helps provide that barrier between those two types of land. And so, again, just a reminder of the applicable review criteria. And is there anything else? Oh, and I will pass it back to Missy. I think that was my last slide. And I'm really glad the font looked better.

Thank you so commissioners. The city does request that the commission close the record at the end at the conclusion of the public hearing and continue the hearing until September 10th for deliberations. We don't believe that it's necessary to keep the record open any longer. We've had. robust public involvement and robust public comment, which the city appreciates. The city also appreciates all of the very authentic and heartfelt comments on this matter. But it is necessary for the city to accomplish this by the end of the year. Thank you.

Are you guys done?

We're done.

OK. Any questions? Yeah, go ahead.

Do you recall the vote when you had this in front of this hearings in front of the City Council and the Sisters Planning Commission? Do you recall the vote? I think they both approved it, but I was just curious what the... Yeah, they haven't approved it.

In other words, if that's what your implication is, there was a vote, but it wasn't to approve the... It wasn't approved the... Are you talking about the actual UGB amendment or the preferred concept? The I thought that you're talking about the the amendment will be UGB amendment. Okay. Yeah, the Planning Commission City Planning Commission has voted on it. They voted unanimously to recommend Council approval. City Council has not yet heard it. They are scheduled to hear it in October.

Thank you.

Many others. So I have a question. I asked the same question at the last hearing and I was hoping the city would actually provide the answer I asked. And that was for a map that identifies those in favor and those opposed by tax lot of the proposed acreage to become into the city. And I asked that actually twice in the past and still haven't received an answer from the city. So I would love to have that answer.

I've heard that there's several property owners that object. In terms of ones that are on record, we only have one letter on record that officially says that they do not support that I know of. I could go back and look at this, and maybe there's two. But that's what I have to go on, is which property owners have actually submitted their comments under the record. And I can show you where those properties are if you'd like.

I just assumed that given the amount of time you've been working on this, that somewhere in the process, somebody would have actually gone out to the property owners and done an inventory and survey of those interested and not interested in participating, which is what I specifically asked for.

Terry Cyrus, can I ask, maybe Matt and Scott and I can answer your question a little better. Can you talk about the specific approval criterion that you're concerned with with that question?

Excuse me?

What is the approval criterion that raises that question for you? that we could help answer, that we could address those concerns.

As I mentioned at the last hearing, to me it's a little bit of a Tetris question in that if you've got a cookie-cutter layout of properties and you've got properties that are interested in developing theirs and properties that are not interested in developing, if by chance you have a buffer zone along all of the infrastructure of those who don't want to participate, then by the nature of the process, most of the question becomes moot on whether or not you have any developable property. And so I was just curious as to whether or not you actually have an avenue forward for development of the land that is coming inside the UGB.

So the multiple Z properties could come into the city boundary, based on just the contiguity measurement. I don't know if you want to put the map back up, but you can see how much linear property from which there was with the existing city boundary. But if one property owner was a level of development, It doesn't mean that they might not want to develop in 10 years if it's a different property owner or they've changed their minds. But what I'm saying is the fee property owner is a development of the year. Because there's so many different avenues with which to put an annexation into the city. I'm sorry about that. Let's put him into the microphone. There's multiple ways that the UGB could develop if If there was only 1 property owner, sometimes that, you know, if that property owner was, you know, say, right adjacent to Campo road is right in the heart of it. Maybe. But even with that, there are other properties around it. They could that are contiguous to the existing boundary that could go forward in the meantime. So. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question completely, but it doesn't shut off or foreclose development of the UGB based on one property owner objection.

You know, this is not going to be a direct answer to your question. I'm sorry we don't have that answer because we don't have a map that shows that because we did not go out and speak to every single property owner. We gave, like all cities do in these processes, we provided the opportunity for people throughout the process. Throughout the process, we notified every property owner individually to say, we are having this meeting. This information is out on the city's website. We are open to having you come talk to us. We did all those things with every property owner throughout the process. And so, as Scott said, some of them we heard from on the record. Some of them we did not. I would say we heard from a fair number of them who said, We are interested. And I think you may hear some testimony from other folks here tonight about that. And you may hear some numbers, acres thrown out. So I would say that. I would say my understanding is there is actually a large block of property owners adjacent to the city limits that is interested and that represents a large percentage, maybe not a majority, but a large percentage of the developable land within the proposed UGB expansion area. And there's additional property owners that we heard from that are outside that area that said, we are also interested. So we did hear from quite a few. We did not create a map because we don't know about a bunch of them. They didn't come and talk to us. So I would say that. And then the other thing, and just to add to what Scott said is, as he said, there's lots of different ways that development within the UGB could proceed. And it is not assumed to be a five-year process or time period. It's expected to happen over 20 years. And that's, you know, look, this is not a perfect system. The state system, it's what we have. I always like to say this is my favorite phrase, maybe don't let perfect be the enemy of good because there is no perfect alternative. There is no perfect solution. But we believe and the city believes this is a very good solution. And it does provide opportunities for most near-term development and longer-term development. The last thing I'll say on this is what somebody tells you today, they may not tell you in 10 years or 5 years or 15 years. And that's why the state says, look, one person can't say, I don't want to be in, so you can't move this thing forward. Because they might not be around in a few years and whoever owns that property might have a different opinion. So I just kind of want to reiterate that because this comes up in every UGB conversation I have around the state. And that is sort of the way the system works against for better or ill. So I will step down from my soapbox, but that's how I think about it anyway, but I appreciate the question. Thank you. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. So would the gentleman that started earlier like to finish his conversation? And what was your name again? So I don't call you a second time when your name comes up.

Terry Tosolo. Field Box 730 in Sisters. I apologize if this is deja vu for some of you. I'll abbreviate a little bit of it. We own 20 acres, family does, had it for 40 years in the UGB area. We've had multiple conversations with other owners that account for over 100 acres of that UGB, and they're all longtime Sisters residents. They're all eager to be part of this process. They want to develop their lands. Any rumors you hear to the contrary are simply false. We've also been approached by Brooks Resources, who I'm sure you all are aware of. They're quality builders and have been for many, many decades. We're excited about talking with them in the future about possibly doing a master plan and presenting that to the city because the city would obviously love to have something like that quality brought to them. One of the other reasons we need to move this process forward, I believe, and I think the other owners in the UGB area agree with, is the school district. My wife and I have put five kids through the sister school district. It's a fabulous school district. As the price of housing goes up, less families can afford to come to sisters. That's just a reality. If we delay this thing from what I've heard, we're going to start the process all over again and we'll be back here in five years. and the price of housing of sisters will probably climb past the price of Ben, because Ben's building houses left and right. That will affect the sister school district, and that would be a real tragedy. So I would urge the commission to close this thing, move it forward, and let's build some housing and sisters, because we need it desperately. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll have next is Kurt Schneller. And on deck is Carrie Svanstrom? You don't want to go yet?

Okay.

So on deck would be Garrett. Mosher?

Good evening, Chair Cyrus and Vice Chair Kelly and commissioners. My name is Kirk Schuler and I am president of Brooks Resources Corporation, previously noted. We are developers of large-scale residential and mixed-use residential communities in Central Oregon. Been doing that for many, many years. While we do not own any land in Sisters, we have been working with owners of approximately 75 acres of land that is included in this expansion proposal. Through that process, we have been able to determine that we can meet the city's planning goals with this land, achieving the mix of housing and other uses in open space. So it's encouraging to us. We hope that this process moves forward so we can continue this work with those owners, bringing forth a master plan to the city. uh we encourage uh we hope that you uh recommend this on to the board of commissioners for approval and um that's all i need to say thank you and on deck is ben welsh

Good evening chair Cyrus members of the planning commission for the record. My name is Garrett Moser here today on behalf of the Central Oregon Builders Association. Thanks for the opportunity to speak here tonight. First thing I'd like to do is just correct a couple of things that were stated on the record earlier. First off, it was not a unanimous vote coming out of Sisters Planning Commission. It was a 3-2 vote if I do recall correctly, but please encourage you to look that up. Second also is the only one property owner on record opposed to this. I've also previously submitted several other letters for property owners in that area. I would encourage you to look back at those as well. First off, though, why COBA is weighing in on this decision, it's not about picking sides or property owners. It's about picking a path that leads to attainable and affordable housing in an efficient manner. City of Sisters has long claimed that this application is the fastest way to produce the housing and a path of least resistance. The reality is this is a fast track to endless studies, riparian inventories, EESE analysis, and we'll make clear why our position has been as such. These lands will simply not reduce the housing that Sisters needs. The questions this commission needs to answer here is whether this application will work on paper or functionally. The reality is, is that the employment lands housing, all the things discussed here today, plus the goal balance of all 19 of Oregon's land use goals are not met by this application. We respectfully ask that you not recommend approval of the application for you. Instead, to quote the editor-in-chief of the Sisters Nugget, tap the brakes on the plan in order to get it right at the first time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And on deck is Bill Willits.

Chair, sirs.

Yes, go ahead.

Um, can I just make a request of staff by the end of tonight's presentation, like this is for the county staff. We've had two different pieces of information regarding something that's definitely public record what the vote was for the sisters planning commission, I would just like to have one of you guys get a chance to research that and maybe get back to us. That would, I think that'd be helpful by the end of the meeting.

What I'm looking at right now.

Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Ben Walsh, 16074 Parrot Huntington Road, Sisters. My family's owned our home at the south end of Berkeley Meadow since 1975. And I think that makes us the longest running current property owners in Parrot Huntington, which is an area of the map that's under some considerable scrutiny. So I would like to say I've watched the land there for more than half a century now. and I want to just offer a couple of comments about matters that are in the record of this body already. One, with respect to staff and the excellent work they've done, I think there's an inaccuracy in their comments earlier this evening. There's a map with a light green area over Barkley Meadow that was identified as wetland, and I think that's an inaccurate reference. I think the accurate reference to that colored area is that it's constrained area. And that can mean a lot of different things. And one thing that I will tell you is that in Jessica Salgado of Division of State Lands in the offsite wetland determination that she submitted into the record as part of that state package, one of the bugs on that map is an actual wetland determination in Berkeley Meadow. And my understanding from the property owner who commissioned that is that that actual wetland delineation resulted in an approximately 75% reduction of constrained area on their property. So that meta has changed a lot over the years. And the outline of the constrained area, I think maybe MIG can tell us accurately what the sources of that outline of constrained area is. Might be Army Corps of Engineers, might be floodplain. Not really sure what all contributes to it, but it's not a clear, simple concept. And it's subject to change with actual delineation. The other comment I want to make is that there's been a lot of comment into the record about homeowner sentiment in Parrot Huntington or in Berkeley Meadows or Berkeley Meadows for Tradition. And I don't really want to speak for other property owners, but on behalf of myself and my family, we support the result of what we view as a really exemplary civic process that's put the AA map in front of you. And I can tell you with certainty that there are some factual inaccuracies, some incomplete or misleading information in representation in the record of this body with respect to homeowner property owner sentiment in the AA map. I urge you to support the amendment. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And on deck is Kurt Kahlberg.

William Willits, managing partner of McKenzie Meadow Village. Thank you. I provided you a book of facts, and I encourage you to leave the record open and study these facts, and then simply ask the city to rebut these facts, and we'll come to what I think is an honest conclusion. I want to start out by saying this is not an indictment on Scott Woodford, who was one of my favorite human beings. It's an indictment on a broken land use system, and we are a part of that. On the cover of your map, you see 10 parcels that have rejected the UGB. We're planting our flag on that. City can rebut it. Two of them are in the light green, which is the Barclay Airport sub area. Eight of them are in what makes up the Barclay First Edition. 80% of the votes in the Barclay First Edition are no. To bring that land in, you need 75%. Yes, the math will never work. Not in five years, not in 10 years, not in 20 years. That's a fact.

Let me see, where am I?

We have never been in opposition to Brooks Resources or any of the Berkeley Airport. We do want to clarify where there are two pieces of land that won't come in. It will have almost no impact on it. Brooks Resources is a great developer, great landowners there, great for the community. That's the green. Where we take... a different position is in that blackened area because the problem is not an environmental problem although that's part of it the problem is that the votes will never allow that land to come in to answer that question and somewhere in here we have to seek the truth and so for for the city of sisters to try to perpetuate berkeley meadows first edition in and reject mmv that I believe is the best affordable model in the history of Deschutes County is painful to sit in the audience and just hear this. So we're asking that you keep the record open. We're asking that you look at points one through three because we dispute what the city has said in the past. And we give you specific documentation, our traffic study, a letter from the Forest Service, and the eight votes that are saying no. And then we request that the County Planning Commission request that the City of Sisters respectfully answer questions 4 through 10. They're questions we've been asking, but we've been pushed away. We've never had the opportunity to get those answers. And so in closing, I'd like to say that until the record is corrected, until questions 4 through 10 are answered, we request that the records stay open.

Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Sure.

When you say... I just want to be...

Okay, thanks. I'm with you. It's confusing.

Say that, you know, this map that you provided us.

Yep.

These properties, they say no, therefore...

They see in ours. Yes. And you'll hear more from Catherine Levitt. She's going to join it because actually there's another property that said no. But yeah, these are properties that we asked the city to go out and pull these people. They never did. So we did. We have a pullout and we've got in your binder. You've got written documentation of their no vote. And then you've got, if you go to tab, let's see, if you go through tab, let me make sure, yeah, tab three, you'll see the various votes and you'll see their parcel because it was requested we provide you tax law.

And I think what I'm wondering, you know, these were part of the public record, so I studied them before this packet. And what kind of caught my attention was this property owner here said that he would be in support. However, his property is not in the new UGP. So I'm a little like just trying to clarify. I'm glad these people are not coming in.

So here's the confusing part. Barclay Meadows first edition is made up of 19 properties. The only property that can come in is the dark colored area, this section. Yet to come in, each property owner has a vote to change their CCNRs. So what that property owner is saying is, gee, if I was down there where I could come in, I would vote favorably. But because the floodplain completely encroaches on my property and I will never come in for posterity, I'm going to vote no because I don't want the disruption. I don't want my ranchette, you know, the whole concept changed. And I think you'll get more testimony.

And that helps me.

Thanks. Thanks for that question.

On deck is Kathy Russell. Oh, excuse me. Tony, did you have a question?

I did. Since I'm not in attendance tonight, is it possible to get a copy of that book that was presented to you folks?

Yes.

That with the colorful map and all that, I do not have that in front of me.

Yeah, we'll find another copy. Thanks.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah, my name is Kurt Kohlberg. Nice to see you guys again. I've been in Sisters 45 years.

I'm the old guy. This is the young person right here.

I'm the old wise guy. This is the young person. I have a question for these three right here. Scott, how far is it from elementary school?

Question, how far? Actually, Kurt. No? You can testify, but we can't get into it.

How far do you think it is from McKenzie Meadow to the elementary school? Four blocks. I think we're gonna have from the elementary school. Not gonna happen, is it? We're trying to put the houses three miles from where planners like yourselves, both our schools, our soccer fields, football fields, People that sat in your seats before were planners. That's where we have the schools are. But these that think they're planners want housing now, they're not planners. They need to go back to the valley. People that live in our community. Our city wants to do it. What are they thinking? Our kids have to go down a truck route, cross a highway to get to their schools. We're gonna kill kids. We're gonna kill young families. What do they have to do to get to our churches? They gotta cross highways. It's ridiculous. They got housing, bare land that's ready to be built on right now And it's not even considered to be in the expansion of our urban growth expansion. It's ridiculous. They shouldn't even have jobs, but we have them as our city planners. It's a joke. Our chairman asked twice, how many pieces of property don't want to be considered? Our planner, Scott, said, oh, I think it's a couple. In my world, a couple is two. I went and my wife went and personally counted the people, how many people did not want to be considered in this expansion. It was 10. 10 is not two. He lied to you guys. That's a lie. He lied twice to you, Matt.

Can you wrap it up fairly quick?

Okay, I'll wrap it up. But that's a flat lie. You know, I don't think, you know, if you guys will accept lying, you know, that's not the way I do business. Thank you.

Thank you. And on deck is Jake Moorhead.

I'm Kathy Russell, 1006 West Collier Place, you're driving. I'm Kathy Russell.

Is that better? You're going to have to talk like right into it.

Okay. I'm Kathy Russell and I live at 1006 West Collier Glacier Drive in Sisters. chair and commissioners i am here tonight to support the city of sisters ugb application and ask you to recommend approval to the county commissioners the city conducted an extensive analysis of the land available for expansion that process included an advisory committee composed of citizens landowners within the potential expansion areas and representatives of both the sisters planning commission and city council The city also went directly to the community through open houses, presentations to civic and business organization and council members staffing a table at the city at sisters farmers market. This was not a rush decision. It was a lengthy, public, and deliberate process. The application before you reflects the decision reached by the City of Sisters after completing that process. This stage of the process is about land, identifying the land best suited to meet Sisters' future needs, It's not a competition between draft master plans. It is not a choice between developers, and it should not be decided by promises about what a landowner may build in the future. Those decisions come later through annexation, zoning, and development review. The city did work. The city did the work it was asked to do. It evaluated the available land, involved the public, weighed the alternatives, and made a decision. The county certainly has a responsibility to review that decision under the applicable land use criteria. But reviews should not become an opportunity continually reopening the city's planning process simply because some people prefer a different property or a different development proposal. At some time, process matters. And at some point, a decision has to be made. Sisters has completed its work. Our community has participated. Our elected officials have acted. It is time for the county to act as well. Please evaluate the application that is actually before you based on the applicable criteria and recommend approval to the county commissioners. Thank you.

Thank you. And on deck is Catherine Levitt.

Good evening. My name is Jake Moorhead and I live at 69015 Barclay Court. My wife Dominique and I own two 10-acre parcels on Barclay Court. One of those parcels is not included in the urban growth boundary. It's our primary residence, but it does border our second parcel that is included in the Urban Growth Boundary, and that is 69021, tax lot number 1307, a 10-acre parcel, as mentioned. Dominique and I would like to express our support for the proposed Sisters UBG plan. Once approved, we fully intend to participate in the master planning process and to work collaboratively with the City and our neighboring property owners. In anticipation of this, we have actively been communicating and working together with many of our neighbors whose properties are included within the proposed UBG. Based on those conversations, we understand that there's significant support of the plan, and of all of those that we are familiar with and have been working with, they intend to participate in the master planning process effective immediately. We believe that this presents a very important opportunity for thoughtful, coordinated planning and responsible growth in Sisters. We look forward to being a part of that process. We thank you for your consideration and hope you approve this.

Great. Thank you. On deck is Theresa Kollerer.

Hopefully I got it right that time.

Hi, I'm Catherine Levitt, and I live on Parrot Huntington Road, and we are in consideration for being annexed into the city. I don't have a planned speech. I've just been writing notes. This is a tough one for me. It's very, very personal, and I think that the city has a tendency to talk in generalities, and they're saying we have a lot of positive input and so forth. Okay.

Digestible as I can. Appreciate it.

So quick question. So when was the last Bend UGB?

I just have their three minutes to express their views. And I it's just, you know, like you're sort of straddling a line of letting somebody talk and get to what they're saying.

Potentially so.

And just to note, we haven't we haven't accepted formally yet, but we've been Tanya and my team have been invited to present. Oh, great. process. So yeah, we're going to see each other in it.

No, that'd be great because, yeah, like I say, it was interesting the fact that, you know, we have especially with Terrebonne coming up specifically and Tumalo is also, I mean, there's discussion about things like expansion of unincorporated communities and housing impacts and a lot of the stuff that certainly could be relevant in our county coming up.

So anyhow, with that, thank everybody and meetings adjourned.