Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's call the meeting to order. All right. First item on the agenda is public comments for anybody that has something not related to an agenda item. Anybody online? Okay. Okay. And do we have Susan on?

I'm here.

Yep. All right. Perfect.

I don't know why my video doesn't work, but I'm here.

You just thought I'm here.

Next item on the agenda is deliberations for the legislative text amendments to Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan and Title 18 of Deschutes County Development Code. Kyle?

Good evening, commissioners. For the record, Kyle Collins, senior planner. I don't have a presentation or anything tonight. I think we'll just do this kind of as an open conversation, but you've obviously got quite a few materials that we've provided for you. First thing that I'll say, I just want to sort of set the framework for what we're doing here tonight. We've obviously gone through a few different public hearings on all the items that we're ultimately going to be deliberating on here. We've given you a decision matrix. We think we've done our best to kind of compile what we believe are the actual issues, the legal requirements for each of the proposals that you're ultimately going to review. That doesn't mean that you can't – talk about other things that might come up. So any themes, any things that you just want to be carried forward to the board at all, even if they don't appear on the matrix, feel free to bring those up. We'll do our best just as staff, both in the room and obviously myself to take those down so that we can bring a summary once we do ultimately get to the board. Other thing that I'll point out is following the hearing, the last hearing on this, which was two weeks ago, We heard from county administration that if, for whatever reason, the commissioners aren't able to make a decision tonight, this will probably be the last opportunity that you have for deliberations. That doesn't mean that you absolutely have to make a decision here. We can just talk generally. We can talk about themes and bring all that forward to the board. But given some of the time-sensitive nature of all the items that we're going to discuss here tonight, we've been directed by administration that this is the one and only shot that you get. With that being said, I'll open it up right now. We are talking about some proposed amendments that were brought forward to the City of Sisters to amend the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan and a portion of our development code, specifically the Title 18 section of our development code, which controls rural properties outside of incorporated areas across Deschutes County. So basically any property for the most part that's not included in Lapine, Sisters, Bend, or Redmond. And specifically, the proposal is intended to cover properties that are near the existing sisters urban growth boundary. So through a series of conversations with the city, it was determined that the county has urban holding zones, which generally are the zones that are applied when properties are brought inside the urban growth boundary and any expansions that they propose. However, those urban holding zones seem to leave a gap in what are determined to be Goal 5 resource protections that the county currently has in place. And so in a nutshell, what would happen is if properties were to be brought into the city of Sisters UGB, but they were not annexed immediately at that point in time, there's a loss potentially of Goal 5 resource protections on certain lands that hold those Goal 5 resources. Goal five resources, again, as a reminder, those are things like natural resources predominantly, but they also include things like mining or aggregate resources. There are things like wildlife corridors in Deschutes County. We have view shed corridors around some of our major rivers and roadways. Highway 126 probably being one of the biggest ones that travels through the city of Sisters. So all of those have existing protections in place depending on the specific resource in question. And those protections would essentially be removed if the urban holding zones themselves were applied to properties brought inside the City of Sisters UGB. So the proposal under review here today is intended to cure that particular gap in resource protection and would allow any property that is brought into the City of Sisters UGB, they can elect to maintain the current zoning that they have in place, provided that it happens to be one of the specific zones that's called out in the proposal. And those zones in this case are the rural residential zone or the RR10 zone, the multiple use agricultural zone, the floodplain zone, and then we have a few different combining zones or overlay zones that would also be applicable. So those are the landscape management combining zone, the airport safety combining zone, and the wildlife area combining zone. So if properties are brought into the UGB at that time, they have the option to either apply the urban holding zone with the aforementioned possible gap in protections that comes along for the ride there. Or they can keep in place the current zoning that they have provided that it falls into one of those categories that I just outlined. So the idea is that properties just keep the current zoning that they have in place until such time that they actually formally go through annexation. At that time, city zoning policies and comprehensive plan designations ultimately override what was previously on site at the county level. So that's a very quick summary overview of what the proposal is. But with that, we can just step through the items that are on the matrix here unless you have any sort of upfront questions you'd like me to respond to.

Questions?

Okay. Gotcha. So item number one is just should the commission recommend amending the comprehensive plan in Title 18 to authorize R-10, MUA-10, FP or floodplain, LNVS, and the WA combining zones as interim zoning designations for land added to the sister's UGB but not yet annexed? We have some different arguments, obviously, from the applicant. You can see here who's the one making the proposal, the City of Sisters. We had a bunch of supporting comments that argued the proposal met the requirements of state law and our existing county policies. We did have some oppositional comments that argued that Title 18 rural zones are inconsistent with the purpose of the Sisters Urban Area Plan designation, which is the underlying comprehensive plan designation that would apply to these properties that are put into the UGB. And ultimately that it would permit rural development or parcelization that could impair future urbanization. Those are good things to keep in mind. However, staff would point out that there is a specific provision in state statute that explicitly allows this particular type of zone retention prior to annexation of properties. They basically say you have a few different options when lands are brought into your UGB. You can create something like an urban holding zone and apply specific standards there, but keeping in mind that those standards can't impede future urbanization. Or the statute points out that you can just maintain the existing rural zoning in place until such time that formal annexation takes place. So there is precedent for this. A lot of different jurisdictions throughout the state don't have urban holding zones. They just go – you can maintain your rural zone until such time that you actually formally go through annexation. So it's not unheard of. It's just not a process that we previously have followed given that we have urban holding zones in place.

Comments? What's your pleasure?

Well, in the interest of moving this along, are we doing motions or are we just discussing?

Like, how would you like to do that? That's up to you guys. We could submit it to the commission with our comments or we could vote on each piece up or down, whatever you guys want to do. We've done both in the past.

Not required that you vote on all these individually. If you want to do it that way, that's perfectly fine. We can also just step through them all generally, and you guys can ask me questions if you'd like, and then have a more open-ended discussion at the end. But I'll leave it up to you.

I mean, one thing that might speed things along is if we do a quick vote at the beginning of each item, and then if there isn't a consensus, then we debate or discuss what our thoughts are, and then that can be carried forward. Yeah. um and i guess if there's some items where people are kind of like i don't know which way i want to vote i want to hear whatever what my colleagues think then we could just wait to do the vote tell okay thoughts anybody else have a better idea okay why don't we do that then so what's your pleasure on the first one all those in favor say aye aye aye hey hi susan

I guess we get to move on on the first one.

Item number two deals with the plan designation zoning and implementation consistency and the specific issue areas is the proposal sufficiently defined and internally consistent for the Commission to recommend it or do unresolved plan designation zoning and or implementation mechanics require modification. That's a very wordy way of basically saying, did they propose this particular gap cure in the right way that makes it consistent between both the Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan as well as the zoning code? And then there's actually a secondary portion of the zoning code, Title 21. It's not under review as a part of this deliberations. That's a separate city process that they've already undertaken. But generally, does everything appear internally consistent? Yeah. So the applicants obviously outlined their proposal, which they believe is internally consistent. Some oppositional comments argued that placing the sister's urban growth area plan designation alongside the retained R10 and MUA10 zoning would create some plan designation and zoning inconsistency, and that it functionally circumvents the UAR10, which is that urban holding zone that we spoke about previously, zoning framework. However, staff notes that there are no changes to county zoning designations that are proposed. All the existing uses remain in place, and there are no proposed changes to existing uses as a part of any of this. The standards of Title 18 and Title 21 would both remain in place. And really, the primary question is whether the county plan designation, which is the portion that they're amending, higher comprehensive plan, and the new standards that are outlined in 1812 of the Deschutes County Development Code, they clearly authorized the relationship between the UGB, the sister's UGB plan designation, and the specific allowance under Title 18 zoning. Staff doesn't appear to think that there is internal inconsistency. They seem to talk to one another as well as they possibly could, given the nature of how all this should interplay. But at the same time, We've never done specifically this type of plan designation, and so I would leave that open to any discussion that the planning commissioners might want to have.

Any questions? Should do this one the same way?

Sure.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

Was that an opposed or is that an aye?

It was an aye.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, number three.

Moving on. Next issue area is, does the combined Title 18 and land division system maintain the land's potential for planned urban development? I'll point out that the state provisions that allow this retention of existing zoning designation call out two, again, potential options. You can either establish urban holding zones, which Deschutes County currently has, but those urban holding zones have to specifically maintain the potential for planned urban development. The statute doesn't seem to imply that same allowance for retained zoning because, again, it's just a retention of the existing zones. And so there's an assumed understanding that if you retain the current zoning that's in place, it would not have some future impacts to future urban development potential. That's the implicit framework there. which is you had rural zoning previously. If you maintain it, presumably nothing else is going to happen that would have further impeded urban development on those properties in the future. That's our interpretation of what the statute stands. However, some of the oppositional arguments have argued that the R10 and MUA10 uses specifically the allowance for what are described as cluster developments or planned unit developments and further parcelization that might occur from those would consume land needed for future urban development. And they've also challenged how Chapter 4.3 of the Sisters Development Code would affect future applications to subdivide land within the UGB but outside the city limits. That last oppositional comment was related to an original component of the proposal under review here, which stated that any properties brought into the Sisters UGB The subdivision standards that they would ultimately have to adhere to would actually come from the City of Sisters, not Deschutes County, which would be a change up from the previous allowance. However, since that particular proposal and following the hearing two weeks ago during the open record period, The City of Sisters specifically withdrew that portion of the proposal. So as of right now, any lands brought into the City of Sisters UGB or any of the UGBs are still subject to Deschutes County's subdivision standards until such time that they're actually annexed. And so that last comment doesn't seem to be applicable.

Okay. Questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, number four.

Next issue area is, does the proposal trigger further Goal 5 analysis because it creates or amends provisions expressly intended to protect significant Goal 5 resources? And does the final amendment authorize any new conflicting uses? So the applicant claims that because no specific changes to the existing uses are proposed, so no changes to the zoning codes themselves are proposed, no changes to the existing Goal 5 resources are proposed at this point in time, it is truly intended to be a continuance of the existing protections in place until such time that future Goal 5 efforts are mandated, which would ultimately be triggered at the time that annexation occurs for these properties. Supporting comments agree that because there are no changes to County Goal 5 protections during the period between UGB expansion and future annexation, that the existing rules were previously sufficient and they would continue to be so. The oppositional comments argue that the change plan designation and land division framework that was originally introduced would allow uses and effects that were not previously evaluated and require a new Goal 5 analysis. As I pointed out in the previous item, that original proposal to adhere sister subdivision standards on these UGB lands has been removed from the application. Again, staff understands that because no new uses are being proposed under the zoning code that would be allowed on these properties, or that would apply to these properties, and no changes to the Goal 5 resources are being proposed at this time, it doesn't appear that there would be any specific effects that would require a new Goal 5 analysis. But again, you can open that up to discussion if there are questions.

Questions? Go ahead.

And I believe we clarified this last time. Uh, so if we go with this, the city of sisters must apply goal five, um,

instruction or research before the full annexation that's correct yeah so there's provisions that we've outlined here in in state law state statute that require any time a city expands its ugb that includes a goal 5 resource and acknowledge goal 5 resource which there are many throughout deschutes county They are required to go through their own Goal 5 analysis, which includes a new inventory. They're required to come up with a program for protection that might be the same as the counties. It might differ from the counties, et cetera. But ultimately, that program and all that work doesn't have to be established until the annexation process is initiated because that's actually when the rules would be put in place, the new rules.

But it could not be weaker than county or state goal five.

It could. So there are minimum standards that the state requires for certain goal five resources. All the Goal 5 analysis requires – and again, this is something that wouldn't be triggered until an actual formal annexation of an individual property that had a Goal 5 resource. That's important to keep in mind. But all the Goal 5 analysis really requires is that you inventory it, you meet whatever the minimum state standards are, and then you come up with potentially your own protection plan that might differ from what the county's is. It might be more restrictive. It might be less restrictive. It might be exactly the same. But ultimately, it just requires that you go through a process to actually establish and put the plan in place. But during this interim period where they're brought into the UGB, so they haven't gone through annexation yet, the county's existing rules in place today are still the ones that would carry forward onto those properties until they have to do this future work, more extensive future work.

Thank you. Anybody else?

I have a question, Chair, if I may.

Okay.

So I just want to jump on Commissioner Williams and clarify. So once the property is annexed, then they must do their goal five process. This is like my only concern is that there's sort of this limbo, which it sounds like is trying to be covered by keeping Title 18 zoning and overlays. But I guess just more clarification. I may have misunderstood, but I just want to make sure that when it's annexed, then the goal five will be done. Not like, well, maybe in five years we'll do the goal five because we're busy right now kind of thing.

That's correct. So there are state triggers outside of the UGB expansion process that require Goal 5 analysis. But those triggers, we've been alerted by the Department of Land Conservation and Development. They ultimately don't have to take place until the UGB has been approved. And then they can start that process either prior to annexation or at the time that annexation is underway.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Just a quick question about the voting. So the question here is phrased such that, like, I think if we answer no to the question, that means yes, then proceed to the next item on the matrix. So just to be clear, like, if you're voting, if you vote aye, does that mean we proceed to the next item on the matrix, hence answering no to the questions here in item four, or is it

So the specific question is whether or not the commissioners feel that the existing proposal requires any county-level Goal 5 analysis at this time. Or do the existing Goal 5 protections in place in the previous analysis that was done to establish all those Goal 5 protections, is it sufficient for the proposal?

So in other words, a yes keeps it as it is.

The commissioners can frame that however they want.

Let's say a yes keeps it as indicates we are okay with what's written and we'd like to move on to the next item just so we're clear on what we're voting on.

And then, like, I might say the second question, does the final amendment authorize any new conflicting uses? We're going to say no if we say yes. It's not going to create any new conflicting uses if we say yes. Correct. That's what we're deciding is the meaning of our vote.

Oh. There's mud. All right. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay.

I vote aye. Bedford delay.

So the last item on this is really, you don't have to take a vote on this item. Mostly just an item that we've, or a discussion point we've talked about a few times, which deals with, was there a conflict between the proposed Title 17 amendments that the city originally included in their application and the existing Title 18 uses? Again, specifically, we're talking about cluster developments and plan unit developments. It appeared to staff that there probably was a conflict, but following the hearing, because the city formally withdrew that portion of their application, it doesn't appear to be in effect anymore, and we no longer have concerns that there may be conflicts there.

All right. Thank you. Nice presentation. Of course. Next item on the agenda, Sisters UGB expansion proposal. Ooh, we're getting double teamed.

An easy one. Your planning manager, Will Groves. I just wanted to confirm, Chair, I don't think you were saying aye or nay at each of those steps. Should we take that as a unanimous, those quick votes as unanimous?

We were deciding on whether or not we generally supported and didn't have any questions so we could move on to the next one. Okay. And so you generally support the staff vote, proposal and don't have any issues with what was proposed is okay i think it's how i interpret it perfect thank you uh before we move on do we want to move on to the next item now or any final comments on the comprehensive plan text amendment portion anybody have any comments overall okay i guess we're ready to move on okay

So the next item up for deliberations is the proposed amendment to the Sisters Urban Growth Boundary. We've got quite a few items here, but what I might want to do at the top here is just if there are any kind of general things you'd like to bring up, things that you heard at the hearing that you'd like staff to elaborate on. might not be included in the matrix if there's something that you feel like they'll actually get addressed through one of the items maybe just leave it off the table and once we get to that you can bring it up but this is more just a time for overall thoughts yeah and I guess I'd open that up and the question is I mean a lot of these matrix items are more technical in nature as long as you know has the city demonstrated this and

whatever it's doesn't really get to the meat of whether we support the overall proposal.

So just to clarify here, there are a few things that are probably important to keep in mind. So as I stated at the beginning of the meeting, if there are things that are not included in the matrix, but general themes that the planning commissioners, any of the planning commissioners want us to carry forward to the board, please make those known. We'll obviously take note of them and bring that information. The specific items that we've outlined here today, though, are the ones that we think are applicable approval criteria for the UGB itself. So there are state standards ultimately that govern how urban growth boundaries are amended in the state of Oregon. It's quite prescriptive. There are a few areas of discretion that allow for specific decision points on the part of the city specifically that are ultimately making the proposals. But what we've tried to do is really drill down on – their standards? Did the city meet their particular standards when they submitted the application? That's really what we want to focus on. If there are more general concerns or questions, things that you want to bring up, again, happy to bring those to light and carry them forward. But we do think that the matrix, to a large extent, is mostly covering the things that should be relevant in terms of do they meet the overall scope of the project and what was required.

So essentially, yeah, this is a technical checklist that we need to work through, and then we can address overall concerns and questions. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Can you give me an update? Because it really doesn't involve like our matrix is the the Luba decision with the MM. Where is the current? What is the current status on? Has anything happened since the last hearing or anything that I'm just kind of curious about that? Because it really hasn't.

No, it doesn't fall in our mind. Unfortunately, we can't address anything that happened once the record was closed.

Is there anything that happened before the record closed that I could be?

Not to staff's knowledge, no. No information outside of the materials that were put in your record packet were submitted after.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Any questions? All right. If we want to proceed with the previous process, all those in favor of number one, say aye.

Aye.

We're going to discuss it.

Well, I asked if you wanted to discuss it.

Well, I think the last process was Kyle sort of gave an overview of the item. And then I kind of enjoyed that.

Now let's do that.

So the first item is, has the city demonstrated a need for the proposed UGB expansion after reasonably accommodating housing, employment, parks, schools, streets, public facilities, and other identified urban needs inside the UGB? So there's quite a few sections of state law that apply to this. But ultimately, the burden is on the city to prove that they actually have a need for specific land types that aren't currently being met by properties that are already inside the city's UGB. That's really step number one in a UGB amendment is you have to prove that you have a need for the land in question and you have to prove that you have a deficiency of land inside your current UGB that can't meet what your projected needs are over a 20-year time horizon is usually what we're looking at with UGBs. So the applicant, the City Sisters in this case, claims that they have experienced substantial 20-year housing and employment growth. They've adopted multiple efficiency measures including zone changes within the UGB to allow more dense housing development in particular. But they ultimately concluded that their UGB capacity was still insufficient to meet primarily housing needs but also employment needs, some industrial needs, public infrastructure needs, things like schools and parks, etc. The applicant's consultant, MIG, who we've spoken to quite a lot during the public hearing process, ultimately prepared an urban growth boundary report that gave what's described as a buildable lands inventory. So essentially a catalog of all lands inside the city of Sisters and what they imagine if they were completely built out at their allowed uses under their current comprehensive plan plan. and zoning designations, how much housing and employment could you actually squeeze out of those parcels. And they found that there was still likely a deficiency, particularly when you start looking out at a 20-year time horizon. They look at a bunch of different things, not just housing and employment land. They're looking at school needs. They're looking at parks needs, which is the parks needs in particular are based on the City of Sisters Parks Master Plan. They're looking at public facility and right-of-way needs. And ultimately, they identified that the city needs approximately 267 gross developable acres in order to accommodate all the different needs over the next 20 years. The preferred alternative, so the actual area that they propose to expand into, includes about 318 acres. But a significant percentage of those acres aren't ultimately able to be developed for a variety of reasons. Some of it is constrained by existing development. Some of it is constrained by natural resource features, so things like floodplains or wetlands, steep slopes. And so those areas were ultimately excluded, which is why you see a discrepancy between that 267 identified land need and the actual proposal for a good bit more than that, the 318 acres. So once they've taken out all those constraints, they determined that ultimately they should be left with approximately 267 acres of developable land if all the land ultimately brought into the UGB is developed according to what they would imagine their preferred uses might be on some of these parcels. Supporting comments note that there's been extensive public engagement undertaken by the city and selecting and crafting UGB alternatives. There was a steering committee at the city level formed several years ago. They went through a lot of different public meetings, went through a lot of possible alternatives, and ultimately this was the selected alternative that's been put in front of you today. They also point out that the existing alternative that they've proposed is adjacent to existing urban infrastructure. So their streets are already stubbed to many of these parcels including things like sewer and water lines have already been brought up to the edges in many cases to the edge of the city and so they could presumably be extended onto these adjacent parcels in the future. And that ultimately a lot of these parcels already contain either low-density residential uses or no development at all. And they felt like that would be compatible with bringing land into the UGB that could be efficiently urbanized at some point in the future. However, we obviously have oppositional comments and they question whether the upcoming changes to the OAR housing needs analysis. This has been referenced many times by the applicant itself, which is if they are unable to complete this local process by January 1 of this year. They've informed us time and again that because of changes in state rules, they'd actually have to go back to the drawing board and restart their housing needs analysis. Not clear exactly how long that would take, but given the previous process has occurred over the last three to four years is really when it's been kicked off in earnest. It seems like – You could assume it would at least take some percentage of that time. So it would ultimately delay the process further, the expansion of the UGB, and probably cost the city additional money. Oppositional comments also point out that there may be other preferred alternatives that are preferable outside of what was chosen, given that it's not clear if they are what they describe as being realistically developable. but they are other alternatives that they feel are more compatible with land being brought into the UGB, given that they'll ultimately be subject to more dense development patterns. Staff points out that the evidence has quite a bit of evidence demonstrating that the city has gone through a pretty extensive public process. They've selected many, many alternatives. And it's important to point out that the actual proposal that's in front of the commissioners here today is what was brought forward by the city itself. We're not here to discuss whether or not a different alternative maybe provided better results. We ultimately cannot require the city to change their preferred alternative. All you are doing is looking at the alternative that was crafted by the city, brought to the planning commissioners in this particular case, and doesn't meet the particular standards and requirements of state law. So did they do their homework in terms of Did they analyze their needs on the ground? Did they find areas that they felt would make those needs and account for constraints in some cases on some of these lands? And ultimately, did they follow all the guidelines that are laid out in state law?

Questions?

No.

So all those who think the city has demonstrated the need for proposed UGB, say aye.

Aye.

Number two. Item number two.

The issue area here is, did the city define and evaluate the required study area and apply the correct priority hierarchy for land considered for UGB inclusion? Again, quite a bit of state statute which governs how land is prioritized for selection by cities to be brought into the UGB. In this case, the applicant evaluated a surrounding study area and focused primarily on acknowledged exception land. Exception land, you can think of it as largely our rural residential land. So they do not include our resource lands, our farm and forest zones. They don't include some other additional lands that aren't adjacent to the City of Sisters. And the reason they focused on that is the state lays out a priority hierarchy when cities are preparing to expand. They have to look at certain lands before other lands. And a lot of that is based on what the zoning and resource characteristics of the lands are. So farm and forest zones, resource zone lands are the lowest priority in many cases for lands to be included inside the UGB hierarchy. Exception lands, rural residential parcels are generally at the top of the list. And then there are some other lands that are included sort of in between there. In this particular case, the City of Sisters chose entirely exception lands in all of their preferred analysis. And their preferred alternative that they selected only includes exception lands. So all the properties that are intended to be brought in either contain our designated RR10 zone, or in some cases, there are small sections that are designated floodplain zone because Deschutes County's floodplain zone is not an overlay zone. It actually exists as a base zone. So it's a little bit of a technical issue there, but it still falls under the exception category in this particular case. Sisters doesn't have urban reserve areas. So those are generally the number one priority. If you've already gone through an urban reserve process, you've already done the work to say like when we expand, we intend to select these lands. But because they've never gone through an urban reserve process and at this point, it's not clear if they will. They rely specifically on those exception lands as the next highest priority. The city also evaluated the MMV property that was brought up by Commissioner Kelly earlier, but ultimately excluded it from the preferred alternative because it currently is designated as a forest zone property. The Deschutes County did go through a process to change the comprehensive plan designation and the zoning designation on that property, but it was ultimately appealed by opponents and the outcome of that appeals process is yet to be resolved. And so the zoning that exists on that property today At the time of this application is still for some message was not included in the priority hierarchy. Supporting comments note that there are unknown legal outcomes concerning the MMV property specifically regarding their plan amendment and zone change process and that that has a direct effect on the priority inclusion framework that we just spoke out. However, oppositional comments assert that alternative land should receive greater comparative weight because they are largely vacant, they're near urban infrastructure and associated housing developments. However, those arguments bear only on the applicable priority in Goal 14 comparison, which we'll go into more detail at a separate item, the Goal 14 analysis that's required by the city. However, ultimately, Stapp points out that the applicant has to use the governing priority framework when they select lands for inclusion in the UGB. There is no way that they can, for example, choose a forest zone property over exception land if those properties can be ultimately included within the UGB. Even if there maybe are good reasons to include lands just from a generic abstract standpoint, the way the system is set up is that is it intended to exclude those properties unless there is no other resort to bring lands inside the city. This specific proceeding doesn't attempt to weigh in on the MMV's appeal process, that plan amendment and zone change process, while maybe important for just some general context. Right now, we are just looking at the proposal to bring in the preferred alternative lands into the city of Sisters UGB. The city has explained why the MMV property was not included, and it's because it does not fall within the priority framework outlined under state statute. With that, I'll take any questions that you might have. Questions?

Okay. Question is, did the city define and evaluate the required study area and apply the correct priority? All those in favor, say yes.

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Number three.

Issue area number three, does the preferred alternative efficiently accommodate the identified land needs when realistic development capacity, existing development, legal constraints, partial configuration, and the planned mix of urban uses are considered? That's one of the requirements that comes out of state statute is did the lands that they propose to bring into the UGB effectively, will they meet the needs that they've identified have a deficiency in their existing urban growth boundary? So the applicant points out that the preferred alternative is a single contiguous area that's close to the existing UGB. Many of the properties are undeveloped or low density development exists on site. It has locations which they believe are suited to residential uses, employment uses, parks and open space uses, primarily those properties that are adjacent to White Shoes Creek. um school needs they they identify the fact that ultimately the city anticipates that another elementary school be needed within the ugb at some point in the future and they anticipate that that would ultimately be constructed uh somewhere within this this preferred alternative The city also acknowledges that there are some existing homes and existing developments on these properties, which might complicate certain urbanization efforts. There are restrictive CCNRs on some of the Barclay Meadow properties, which also might have an impact on future urbanization efforts. And ultimately, they do acknowledge that there is some identified owner reluctance to actually be annexed into the City of Sisters, including by some of the property owners that were outlined in the preferred alternative area. But they also point out that the UGB planning process is intended to be over a 20-year time horizon, and it doesn't assume that every parcel needs to annex immediately and develop immediately. So what they're ultimately trying to look at is the state standards outline, do you reasonably expect over 20 years that the majority of the needs that you've identified inside your city limits, could they be captured by the land that you – proposed to bring inside your city limits. That's ultimately what the state statute lays out is, can you reasonably expect that these properties might develop? Doesn't anticipate that every square inch of the properties might be developed. You just have to reasonably expect that it could meet those particular needs. At the August 27th hearing, city representatives also stressed that owner consent isn't a criterion for UGB inclusion and that a substantial block of owners representing some of the acreage in the preferred alternative do support inclusion in the UGB. Staff would stress that that is true. There is no specific criterion that's laid out at a statutory level that states that owner consent for being brought into a UGB is ultimately something that you have to evaluate, something that you can take into context as you're weighing preferred alternatives, but it's not a specific selection criteria. Some of the supporting comments agree with the city's analysis and note that, again, the preferred alternative was selected after a pretty extensive community engagement process. They also note that several of the property owners are, in fact, interested in being brought into the city limits and ultimately developing those properties. Planning commissioners have heard from a few of those. Oppositional comments, however, argue that the preferred alternative counts capacity on developed or parcelized land, which is subject to some private restrictions, those CC&Rs we just spoke about, and the owners who presently do not intend to redevelop. Advocates for alternative lands contrast that the selected alternative has larger vacant parcels and greater stated development interest. Again, staff comments here. We've got to talk about a few of these probably in more detail if you'd like. But ultimately, CCNRs, existing development, and parcelization are relevant things to consider when you're considering efficient accommodation of land need. However, owner consent specifically is not a UGB selection criterion. Even if current property owners have absolutely no wish to be brought inside the city limits or inside the UGB, that's something that you can take into consideration as part of your general analysis, but it's not something that's called out in statutory language. It's something that you ultimately have to wait for or against the selection factors that you put forward. Staff also points out that the August 27th packet contains multiple signed Barclay owner surveys, which seem to oppose denser development and the CCR amendments that are in place, or excuse me, amendments to the CCRs that are in place. However, while that information may present property owner reluctance, it should note that it's not a legal bar to future redevelopment. CCNRs can change. Lots of things can change with these individual properties, and we have no way of predicting the future development potential of these properties beyond what currently exists on site, and that's ultimately what the city has to rely on. They need to establish what's on the properties. Are there any absolute things that would stand in the way of future redevelopment? And as of right now, there does not appear to be an absolute no on many of these lots. It also points out that the recorded declaration containing the claim CCNR amendment threshold hasn't been submitted to the record. So its specifics and legal effect remain unverified. We don't know exactly how many votes it would take to change the CCNRs on those Barclay Meadow properties or who and when those might be amended at some point in the future. We just simply don't have that information in the record. And then finally, staff points out that the selection of priority inclusion lands is subject to some prescriptive standards, which have gone over in great detail in the previous items. And the city has described in detail through their application materials how they've met that priority selection analysis, which specifically, again, means that they have to include exception lands above maybe some other lands that other property owners in the area might wish to include, but they don't currently have zoning designations that would allow them to jump higher up the priority land selection analysis. Provided that the city has applied that priority selection framework appropriately and additional goal 14 analysis, which is the urbanization planning goal, including factor one, which we'll talk about in a little bit more detail. It appears to provide jurisdictions with a fair amount of discretion in how they actually select the lands and how the individual factors that they want to give appropriate weight to when choosing those lands are allowed. So the state framework – tell cities you have to pick amongst all these different – you have to consider all these various factors when you're choosing lands. But how you choose to weight individual factors is ultimately left up to the cities themselves. So if you want to weight something like legal restrictions or CC&Rs very, very highly in terms of your selection analysis, it allows you to do so. If you want to weight something more highly like adjacent infrastructure needs or something to that effect, you can weight that more highly. But ultimately, the weighting of those factors, provided that they're at least taken into account at all, is the real ultimate meat of what they have to do. Staff seems to think that they have, in fact, shown that they've done that particular work. There might be good arguments from other parties why certain properties should be weighted in a different manner, but that's ultimately, again, left up to the discretion of the city itself.

So I have a question.

Yeah, go ahead. I think I know the answer to this, but I feel the need to clarify. So in terms of what you're asking for us from this matrix to carry forward to the board, you want to know, do we think that the city has met these criteria as opposed to, like, I think the other question would be, like, what are our opinions or feelings about what got weighted and how?

Correct. So ultimately the question is there are specific thresholds and criteria that state statute outlines as you have to give consideration of all these factors in terms of how you're selecting lands. So you've already gone through the priority factors. You've said I want to choose all these exception lands or if you have urban reserves, you choose those lands. And then you go through sort of a secondary analysis which says – Did you look at things like legal restrictions on those properties? Did you look at parcelization? Did you look at existing development or proximity to existing infrastructure concerns? Provided that you take all that into context in your analysis, how you weight those individual factors is left open to the city. So again, they can weight something very, very highly. that the commissioners themselves might think needs to be weighted differently. But that's not the specific thing that's under review here. It's just, did they take all of the relevant factors into consideration when selecting the lands?

Go ahead. I just have a suggestion, but just defer to your judgment as the chair. But I wonder if it would make sense to vote for this particular criterion in this process. But then if we do have personal feelings or opinions about how things were weighted by the city, we could do that at the end with our other sort of comments or general comments.

I think this one, I mean, I certainly have some comments and opinions and thoughts on how the process was done and whether or not they met the criteria more so than the previous ones. And I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts. If you have any.

So my thoughts are, I'll just start, but I'd like to hear everyone else's too. I guess I've been very impressed with the public testimony just in general, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and digesting it. and um have sort of figured out for myself i have to really figure out like what exactly is my role as a planning commissioner for deschutes county and what am i being asked to do right now and so i plan to vote yes when we vote on this um irrespective of any sort of personal feelings or ideas i have about you know should they have waited this more than that or should they have done more to figure out, assess property owner reluctance. I don't know, but it doesn't actually seem like that's my, I don't need to work out my personal feelings about that because that's actually not my role as a planning commissioner for Deschutes County in this process. I think That process has been other people's role. There was a steering committee. There was a sister's planning commission. There was extensive public outreach and discussion of what factors should be weighted and out of respect for the... huge number of people involved in that process. I think that was their job to weigh those factors. So I'm just here to say that yeah, I think they met the criteria. I don't see anything against any rules here. So that's why I plan to support this point in the decision matrix.

Any other thoughts? I've got a couple. You know, the question is whether the preferred alternative efficiently accommodates the identified land needs with realistic development capacity. To me, that's a huge sticking point. I asked multiple times for a breakdown, and granted it's not a legal requirement, a breakdown so in my mind I could weigh whether or not this is a realistic proposal. But I asked for a breakdown of those parcels that did and did not want to be part of this process. And the city three times chose not to answer the question. Fortunately, there were some people in the submitted testimony that contradicted the city's testimony. And the city had indicated that the vast majority of the people that were proposed to come in were in favor of it. the testimony that was provided contradicted that. And if you take a look at the specific parcels of those that said they were not interested in becoming or coming within the UGB, it creates a pretty big block that also isolates other properties. And so unless those parcels were forced to develop, which I also have a concern in that the city said that that they weren't taking eminent domain off the table. So, as a county commissioner, we're not obligated to what the city wants to do. In my opinion, our obligation is to those people who live outside the city limits and who we represent as county citizens and I have some serious concerns that the county actually went through the proper process to determine whether or not these parcels are actually developable. You know, you've got the legal issues that have been brought up with regard to a subdivision and then you've got people who flat out don't want to be part of it I have a hard time supporting forcing them to come within the UGB. And so this is one that I'd probably have a hard time agreeing that the city met those criteria. Thoughts? Anybody else?

I would tend to lean toward Commissioner Kira's thoughts. A lot has been put into this and I do understand that there are homeowners that may not be keen on this, but this is a long-term view. Those folks may or may not hold title to property when annexation occurs. Nothing occurs really until annexation. And I feel the City of Sisters really... And no, they don't have to tell us, you know, yes, I do. No, I don't. You're not, you know, it's kind of like voting. You're not always going to get 100% turnout. So I am in favor of a yes, because I feel that the City of Sisters has done diligence and nothing may occur tomorrow and folks don't have to just hop on board immediately. Any others?

Yeah, I think this is a maybe a good opportunity. I also agree that I honor the folks that went before us and went through the process, this process, because although it's not a perfect process, I do think that they did meet this criteria and I and I do plan to say yes, I do understand that. that not everyone agrees of that and i loved hearing the public testimony of opposition um because i think they brought up faults in the process that i think that i do agree with but with this with the rules that we have i do think that the city did the best they could with what the and i understand that not everyone wants to develop Um, immediately. And that's not the point of this. The point is a gradual, if everyone did say yes and want to develop it, it would oversupply. There's just not, the system's not designed for that. It is designed for a kind of a slow rollout where, um, That would be the natural growth. So I don't necessarily say, oh, because not everyone wants to develop now. It's a faulted map. So I do, I mean, I really, this was, I thought very long and hard about this because I do think that a lot is at stake. A lot of people put a lot of effort into creating these maps and alternatives. Um, and so I really just respect that process and I do feel that the city of sisters did the best they could with, uh, with their process.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. I think overall urbanization, it's a messy process. It's very detailed, takes a long time. And I appreciate all the comments we got from everyone and just to show how much people cared about things on both sides of it. Ultimately, Sisters needs the land. I don't deny that, the 318 acres. I think time's going to tell if it's going to result in that 267 gross developable acres. So I just want to throw that in there, and those are some of my thoughts on it.

And I would certainly agree that a huge amount of work and a lot of time and a lot of hours went into this. I just personally think what's lacking is the proof that they're actually going to accomplish what they've done. what they're trying to accomplish with regard to the acreage. Granted, I realize some of the properties absolutely want to be part of. I'm just concerned that there might be enough parcels that would block the intent of the direction we're headed. And so that's, like I say, that's the one thing I was disappointed was never provided to show a pathway forward. You know, the last time the UGB came up, one of the parcels that's right adjacent to the city was up for it. The recommendation from the city was that it be included in the UGB. And the landowner was adamant against coming into the UGB. And so at that point, the Planning Commission chose to go a different direction and not force that person in. And which now times have changed. It's been 20 years. That parcel is front and center coming in. And so I guess based on previous precedent, I have a little bit of a hard time forcing those that don't want to be in to come in because there will be future opportunities when people change their mind. So any other thoughts?

Does Commissioner Altman have anything?

Yeah, I'm here. I agree. I agree with everybody on both sides. I think that if I look at the criteria that we are supposed to consider where owner consent is not a UGB selection criterion, I think that makes it clear. I agree. really recognize and appreciate that there are people on complete opposite ends of the debate where they absolutely want to be in and, you know, we'll develop as soon as they can. And there are people who absolutely do not want to be in and want no part of this. And I think our job is to find the middle way that provides a needed resource for the, the future expansion of the city.

Any other comments?

I'll just add one thing. I really appreciate your thought on the fact that we're here to represent the citizens of Deschutes County. That really stuck with me from the last meeting and you mentioned it again today. I just... I just think that's really important. I think a lot of times people that live in the rural county, including myself, have a hard time with the idea of urbanization because we like to live in the country. That said, given that there is a Goal 14, it's not actually up to... We can't just keep everything rural. There does have to be these expansions and we have to have the land to accommodate those housing needs, which is always something, by the way, for people who don't come to a lot of our meetings, that is something that people who live in Deschutes County frequently kind of scratch their heads about, like, wait a minute, like, if we build it, they'll come, you know, but... We have to build it if people are projected to come. So people always kind of have a thing about this. So given all of that, I still stand by what I said earlier, that I support this because it meets the criteria. But to the extent that that's upsetting or frustrating to people, I think it's important to consider all of the complexities. that are involved with land use, but also recognize that there is a state land use system that we're working within and we're following that structure of that system. So that may not, yeah, I'll stop there.

Any other comments, thoughts? Okay, we'll vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Chair votes no. Number four.

And can you guys carry all those comments forward since that was the one we didn't vote unanimously on?

Oh, that was great discussion. Thank you. Definitely carry it forward. So issue area number four is, can the preferred alternative be served in an orderly, economic, and reasonably feasible manner? And does the transportation analysis remain valid under the interim zoning architecture, which is now under consideration? So there's a few different things to consider here. So the original UGB proposal proposed to not only change the comprehensive plan designation, but also the zoning designations for the properties in question. So they would be pulled into that urban holding zone that we discussed in the previous deliberation item. That's no longer the case. The city has formally modified their proposal and based on the specific recommendation from the planning commission here tonight, which is that retention of existing zoning designations for certain zones could be carried forward into the Sisters UGB. That's actually what the city ultimately has proposed at this point in time. So the only thing that would be changing under this proposal is the actual comprehensive plan designation for the properties, which allows the properties to annex at some point in the future. That is important in this particular case because no uses are actually changing on the properties in question where that was not necessarily the case when the properties themselves would have gone through a zone change in addition to a comprehensive plan designation. So there were different uses that are allowed in the urban holding zone that are allowed in the R10 zone. A lot of them have overlap, but there are slight differences. And so that might have possible impacts on transportation analysis and what types of development you might expect on these properties during this interim period where they're not in the city. They're still in the county, but they're in the city's UGB. It's no longer the case because they proposed to retain the existing zoning. We can expect that the same uses that would have been allowed yesterday would still be allowed carrying forward until the properties themselves are annexed. So that's one part of all this to put up front. The other part is that the city has to prove ultimately that the property or at the very least, they have to prove that they've done analysis that shows the properties can be orderly and reasonably served economically once they're brought into the UGB. So can they actually provide services to these properties in a timely manner and in an economically viable manner? So the applicant has pointed out that there's existing water, wastewater, and street facilities, which stub towards many of the properties and the preferred alternative. And they expect detailed extensions and phasing that will ultimately occur through area planning, annexation, and development of the properties themselves. So that involves later steps, ultimately. So the city is not ultimately required to come up with a specific master plan for these properties to be brought into the UGB. And the reason for that is... There are multiple different owners. They don't know exactly when all these properties might annex. Some of them may ultimately never annex. That's largely at the discretion of the owners themselves or in some extreme cases potentially the city. But the specific infrastructure planning for the properties themselves would ultimately occur at a later step. So we're not going into the nitty-gritty details of that. where roads would ultimately be led, where our wastewater facility is going to be specifically located. That does have to happen, but it ultimately happens at the urbanization and annexation step later down the road. The city does acknowledge that White Juice Creek crossings will probably be required, at least one crossing across White Juice Creek in order to provide a secondary access point to some of these properties. They also acknowledge that a pump station at some lower elevations will probably be required. And they anticipate that right-of-way acquisition for certain collectors and arterials will ultimately be required. So the city will probably have to take ownership of some land in order to actually extend roads through some of these properties. However, they point out that those same limitations, with possibly the exception of the White Shoes Creek, crossing apply to essentially any alternative that would ultimately be chosen. So you're always going to have to provide infrastructure across lots once they urbanize. You're going to have to provide street extensions, et cetera. And so there's always going to be right-of-way acquisitions and extensions of infrastructure. And that usually does require the city themselves to ultimately take ownership of those portions of the land. Stat points out that the initial transportation analysis that was provided by the city anticipated a net zero trip generation rate. And that remains to be the case. I would say even more so now because there's going to be a retention of the existing zoning. So given that there's no changes and uses that are allowed on these properties, we wouldn't expect there to be any additional uses that might suddenly appear that are going to cause a huge influx of traffic on any of these properties. Additionally, there's some contemplated Title 21 use changes, which we'll discuss in the third item under consideration here tonight, that would have included a provision to redesignate kennels and animal hospitals and daycare center facilities as conditional uses within the UAR 10 zone. The reason that was originally brought up in the transportation analysis is those are uses that are currently allowed in the R10 zone as conditional uses, but not in the UA R10 zone. And so there is a proposal to potentially kind of bridge the gap between the urban holding zone and the R10 zone to make annexation and use of the urban holding zone more feasible. That's no longer the case now since they're just keeping the existing zoning in place. Some oppositional comments question the creek crossings, the pump station needs, the road acquisition. Access to Highway 126 came up quite a lot. That's largely where the crossing of White Shoes Creek is going to be concerned. Emergency access to the property. And then finally, the relative service costs of extending both roads and infrastructure projects across the preferred alternative areas. And they point out that alternative sites point to some adjacent utilities, and they've provided letters from the Forest Service, letters from the Sisters Fire Department, and some right-of-way materials that they claim as evidence that their lands may be more development-ready or other lands in the surrounding area may be more development-ready. Staff points out that the city's alternative valuation did provide a sufficient factor two analysis. So factor two comes out of goal 14. There are four factors in goal 14. Factor two deals with the provision of infrastructure for the most part. Can you efficiently and economically provide infrastructure to properties that you bring inside the UGB? They ultimately did provide a comparison amongst the alternatives. Again, the weighting of those individual factors, how much they assume things might cost in the future, that's largely left up to the discretion of the cities themselves. But ultimately, they're provided to show at least some homework that says, yes, you took into consideration that if you go in this particular direction, You're going to have to provide services in this particular way to these specific properties. And you give a generic understanding that it's probably going to cost a certain amount of money over an expected, in this case, a 20-year time horizon. Some additional context, just to point out some of the oppositional comments. Again, the Planning Commission can't specifically amend the city's proposal. So what you're looking at is, does the current proposal meet the standards under review? And just some even additional context there, just to point out some of the materials in the record. So we do have a letter from the Forest Service which shows that there is a possible road path for some of the alternative properties, but it's not a final approved access for those properties. So everything would still be subject to future efforts. It's purely hypothetical ultimately, which says maybe this could work. The same is true of the Sisters Fire District letter, which shows that some of the alternative properties did go through a pre-development consultation. But they didn't say that they would specifically approve a route to those properties. They essentially just said, yes, this is possible, but it would ultimately depend on the proposal.

And no formal proposal was brought forward at that particular time.

There's a transportation study that was provided by some of the people in opposition, which supports that the properties that are currently – some of the alternative properties which are currently zoned as forest use that would be rezoned to MUA 10. fit the transportation planning rule. However, staff points out that the future UGBA build out on alternative sites is not under review. So even if there are good arguments for why properties might have specific transportation advantages when being brought forward, again, we're looking at what the city has proposed here today. So regardless of what other transportation studies might say about alternative sites, that might be interesting context, but it's not specifically an approval criterion. So really, in summary, it's just, is there a comparative cost, capacity, phasing, and access uncertainty that's been addressed in the application materials? So did the city at least take into context all of those different items when they selected this preferred alternative and give a generic understanding that, yes, we actually can provide services to these individual lots? And if the city has provided that priority selection framework that's identified in state statute and the Goal 14 Factor 2 analysis, it does seem to provide jurisdictions with discretion, again, in how those individual factors are weighted as long as they provide a comparative analysis against all those different variables. Staff also just finally points out, this is really more of a footnote than anything, that the transportation findings that are included in the original staff report that the Planning Commission has access to from staff ultimately have to be updated given the modified proposal to no longer go through the zone change process. So that's just a little bit of context, which once we go back to the board with ultimately whatever your recommendation is here, we'll have to change some of those findings in the staff report.

Questions? I have one. How much of the development is contingent, and maybe none of it, on a secondary Highway 126 access?

Contingent in what manner?

Well, I mean, required, I mean, from fire, evacuation, whatever, how much development can be done without requiring an additional access onto 126?

I don't know the answer to that question.

More of a comment than a question. I understand, it says in the staff notes, final engineering design or detailed cost analysis is not required to develop UGB proposals. I would just encourage City of Sisters, if possible, if there's any areas they're considering or stuff that they can share with county commission mainly with the uh those property owners like i think of katherine levitt who commented because there's the concern of like a bridge it doesn't have to be something finalized i'm just thinking out loud of if there's any like areas that are being considered for crossings if there can just be like no they're just the heads up and the county commission process so that's just something i want to throw in there

I would second that because that's a concern I have is when I analyze the parcels that don't want to be included, I'm aware of the city's position that they won't rule out eminent domain. And I'm concerned that they would exercise that to ruin properties that have no intention of developing. Anybody else? Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, I recall the city saying that they don't anticipate having to do that. They don't want to do that, that they would try everything to prevent that. But, like, technically that that could happen. And that also made me nervous because... even like a really small probability of something that devastating to somebody is just like emotionally pretty charged. So put me down for a plus one on Commissioner Stockcamp's comment that, yeah, just if the board could just have like that comment sort of carried forward to us that we're, you know, we're just concerned about people and creek crossings and how that affects you know, affects people that currently live in the county. And I say that just alongside my understanding of the city's comments, which is like they're also on board with that. They said that they don't want to do that either, but just looking out for everyone's best interest, I think... Hopefully we're all on the same page that none of us want that for anyone and all of the people involved will consider other alternatives. Strongly consider other alternatives.

I guess I would take it one step further and encourage the city to completely rule that out and agree not to use eminent domain against those, especially those that don't want to be in the UGB or take those parcels off the proposal.

Anybody else?

I'm just chiming in to agree with you, Chair Cyrus.

Go ahead.

I'm just chiming in to agree with what you just said.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Any thoughts? Okay. All those who believe the Preferred alternative can be served in an orderly and economically feasible manner. Say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Carries.

All right. Issue area number five. This is another goal 14 area. This is factor three of the four factors that we talked about. So this deals with economic, social, environmental and energy consequences. I'll talk about more more about what that actually means in a second. But. The question in front of you is, does the preferred alternative reasonably balance environmental, social, economic, and energy consequences, including natural resource protection, wildfire mitigation, airport safety, and the record when compared against the evaluated alternatives? Again, there's quite a few state statutory rules that govern this, but the primary one that we're talking about is Goal 14, which is, again, the urbanization chapter. So the applicant points out that the alternatives evaluation considered lots of different natural resources, including streams, wetlands, floodplains, wildlife corridors, walkability and open space opportunities, airport proximity and wildfire risk associated with properties. The city ultimately found that the preferred alternative minimized water resource impacts compared with other alternatives and that identified resource areas can be protected through existing interim county protections that will ultimately be followed by the city's post-UGB Goal 5 work that we spoke about previously. At the August 27th hearing, the city emphasized that the resource information that was provided by the Department of Land Conservation and Development, the Department of State Lands, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had been addressed in its alternatives analysis, and that the Goal 14 EC comparison had already considered that those resource constraints should be factored in to any future development work that might occur on those properties. Some supporting comments identified that the previous work of the City of Sisters has been done in protecting natural resources, and they believe that the chosen alternative very carefully balances pressing community needs with the desire to preserve any sensitive resources in the UGB. They also point out that impacts to natural resources on other alternative sites were also considered through the selection process that the steering committee went through and that that ultimately was one of many different factors that went into choosing a preferred alternative. Some oppositional comments express concern regarding impacts to wetlands and riparian resources, primarily White Juice Creek and Indian Ford Creek on the far eastern boundary and southern boundary of the preferred alternative. We've seen a bunch of maps showing obviously where there's some possible impacts there. Some concerns around wildfire risk of the chosen alternative, proximity to the airport, and then finally some uncertainty about whether the preferred alternative will actually deliver housing in the planning horizon. So staff is going to point out that goal 14 factor three is just a comparative judgment of environmental, social, economic, and energy consequences of the properties themselves. So goal 14 essentially sets out that you have to consider all four of those issue areas. Again, the city is allowed a fair amount of discretion in terms of how they weight those individual factors, but they have to show that they've at least considered the economic consequences of choosing those lands. Maybe it's a good choice. Maybe it's a bad choice economically. Same is true of environmental consequences, social consequences and energy use consequences. Those are the four big things that they ultimately have to look at. This is separate from compliance with Goal 5 more generally, which is the statewide planning goal that covers natural resource protections. That will ultimately be discussed in a separate item, which is coming up. But the EC analysis that is performed under Goal 14 outlines a set of standards that the selected view GB alternative has to evaluate all these various community values. And then they have to determine is it the right balance of those particular values for any particular site. So communities obviously have competing values. Some things are tradeoffs like maybe you want to – establish housing in an area that has significant use for some other land use. And you're ultimately having to dedicate those lands to housing instead of something else. So maybe there's social consequences there. Maybe you're having to choose lands that are farther away that are going to require more energy use for people commuting into other areas of the city because the land itself is easier to develop for whatever reason. Or maybe there's less wildfire risk in those particular areas. Yeah. The broader point is just that you have to provide at least some comparative analysis across all these different relevant areas for all of the different alternatives that you ultimately evaluate. And then based on those evaluations and how the city ultimately chose to weight those relevant details, they arrive at a preferred alternative in this particular case. It's very similar to Goal 5 work, which is, again, that broader natural resource work. So when developing a Goal 5 program, which the city, again, will ultimately have to do as it undertakes its annexation process, they have to go through an easy process there as well, but it's separate from this Goal 14 process. So they still have to evaluate what are natural resources, how do they determine any development impacts might be applied to those natural resources, do they want to really highly value natural resources. Maybe they want to weight something else slightly higher than the natural resource values, but ultimately that's a separate decision that occurs later down the line. But it is something, again, that the city will have to undergo. There's some resource information that was provided by the three state agencies that I referenced early and some public testimony that needs to be weighted across the alternatives and all in both sets of easy analysis. However, the August 27th exhibits add that documented fire access consultation and housing delivery cerns for alternative sites. Those are things that are important to address the wildfire component of this and some of the natural resource components, but they have to be weighed against all the other factors that the city has ultimately chosen. And again, even if another particular set of weights might be preferable to the commission in this particular case, that's ultimately not what's under review. It's just, did they do the analysis and did they show their homework? In this particular case, staff finds that there hasn't been any submitted documentation that identifies any negative impacts to airport operations. That could fall in a few different categories there. Economic, social, potentially energy is another one. So we haven't heard any proposed negative impacts to the Sister Sequel Air Airport. And then lastly, I just want to reiterate that the commission has to be reminded that the pertinent question really is, did the alternatives, the selected alternative meet the identified standards and criteria? And it's just whether or not the record supports the overall comparative balance, not unspecifically, is every single issue for every single resource that might be identified been addressed in great detail? It's just... Did you generally show a balanced evaluation of the properties that were ultimately chosen? And does that meet the factor three analysis required by goal 14? Um, ultimately if the city did apply the priority selection framework, which again, staff believes it did that's identified in state statute and the goal 14 evaluation, including the factor three stuff, it does appear to provide jurisdictions with that discretion and how those factors are weighted. And so at this point, staff feels that they probably did meet that particular analysis, but ultimately I would open it up to any discussion or questions that you might have.

Questions. Do we believe the preferred alternative reasonably balanced environmental, social, economic energy consequences? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. All right. Next order.

Last few here. Issue area number six, this deals with the last factor in Goal 14 analysis, which is the compatibility with nearby agricultural and forest uses. And the specific question is, does the preferred alternative reasonably minimize adverse consequences to nearby farm and forest uses? Again, this is one of the many different factors that comes out of goal 14. But in a nutshell, it requires that any selected lands that are brought into the UGB have to evaluate what sort of impacts to surrounding farm and forest properties might be carried forward if these lands were ultimately urbanized. So the city points out that the preferred alternative is exclusively exception land, which we talked about earlier. So they're not bringing proposing to bring any resource land. All the land is adjacent to the existing UGB, so they're not choosing properties that are two miles away from the existing UGB boundary. The applicant also points out that Highway 126 to the south, they believe, provides a barrier to any future urban uses on any of these properties and EFU lands, which are primarily to the south of the highway in this particular case. And they point out that any nearby agricultural land is a half a mile at the closest east of the proposed UGB boundary. So even the properties that are not proposed for Inclusion in the UGB that are adjacent to these preferred alternative lands are largely R10 lands, with the exception of those lands that are separated by Highway 126 to the south. The city's scoring ultimately treats the preferred location as favorable while recognizing that there is at least some adjacency to resource lands just near that Highway 126 boundary. But again, they believe the highway itself serves as a reasonable barrier between urban uses in the UGB and farm uses further to the south and east. Some supporting comments note that the selected alternative is adjacent to the existing UGB. It's composed of parcels that contain low-density rural residential uses and that future urbanization of the lands is believed to have pretty low impacts to resource values in other areas surrounding the city itself. But some oppositional comments argue that the alternative scoring understates things like edge effects, so what happens to the properties that might be, even if they're not directly touching the preferred alternative itself, maybe there's effects that extend farther out once the lands themselves actually start to urbanize. They point out some concerns with wildfire risks, conflicts with things like natural resources and impacts to other farming and forestry operations. And specifically, supporters of the McKenzie Meadows property argue that those concerns should be compared consistently because MMV also joins Forest Service land and private conservation lands, but also offers other development advantages. Staff, again, points out, this will sound a little bit like a broken record, but ultimately the record includes opportunities and constraints, and it doesn't rely specifically on the numeric value that the city provided. So the city attempted to weight these individual variables. including things like impacts to farm and forest lands. They provided numbers to that. And then ultimately they aggregate all those variables together and come up with a final score, which is how the preferred alternative is finally selected. But that's not the only thing that they do. They also talk more generally in their application materials around expected impacts to surrounding properties. They talk about the things some of the things that we just brought up. So the fact that Highway 126 serves as sort of a formal barrier between a lot of the lands that might see impact, some of the farmlands to the south and east. And ultimately, the scoring system is really just more of an organizational tool. It's not like a specific piece of evidence that the commission should say, you didn't weigh these variables correctly. And thus, we think the preferred alternative is flawed. It's really just, did they take into context all of these different variables, including possible impacts to surrounding farming forest lands. The statutory rules set some pretty specific objective standards for how land should be prioritized for inclusion. We talked about this many, many times. But ultimately, the city's application materials consistently reference that that was the standard they use in justifying the preferred alternative. So they did not select resource lands. And the reason for that is those are a lower priority for selection within any UGB expansion area, including the City of Sisters. And there were enough exception lands that they had plenty of different persons to choose from. And so they weren't required to go to lower priority lands like farm and forest uses. Ultimately, if the city has properly applied the priority selection framework and the goal 14 evaluation, including in this case the factor for evaluation. It appears that they have discretion, how they weight those variables and the staff ultimately believes that they have indeed shown that they performed the relevant analysis. Questions.

I have one. Is there a legal distinction between farm and forest versus the zones, if you versus forest zone?

Could you clarify that question a little bit more?

Well, for example, the question is, does the preferred alternative reasonably minimize adverse consequences to nearby farm and forest uses? Or is there a distinction between EFU and forest one or two zones?

So both of those are some of the designated state resource lands. So even in Deschutes County, we have a zoning code that deals with our exclusive farm use lands. But the rules that govern those lands are almost exclusively driven by statutory standards. We have some very minor discretion in farm lands and forest lands, but ultimately resource lands in the state of Oregon are driven by state statutory rules.

The reason I'm asking is because part of the lands within the proposal are irrigated fields, which, in my opinion, is farmland. versus a zone, which granted, as you pointed out, the MUA or RR are exception zones. My question is, is this a statutory requirement to protect farmland or resource zones?

In this case, it's specific to the zones themselves.

Okay. I just, like I say, the way the question was worded, it says farm versus which, like I say, a lot of that property is actually being farmed.

So it's a good question. Even if there are agricultural uses occurring on individual properties, if they don't fall under the priority categories, which again deal largely with zoning designations in this particular state separates these things out, they wouldn't be included as lower priority lands.

That was the purpose of the question is whether statutorily referred to farmland versus specific zones. Correct. Do you have a question or anybody else?

No, I just want to say that was a good question.

All right. So, those who believe the preferred alternative reasonably minimize adverse impacts and consequences to nearby farm and forest uses, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. All right. Number seven.

All right. Last two. Issue area number seven. This deals with goal five requirements that might be triggered by the proposal. And the question specifically is, has the UGB amendment adequately addressed the separate goal five work that was triggered by resource information that's been included in the record? So to put this in broader context, this came up during the hearings quite a lot. We obviously received some comments from the Department of Land Conservation Development, Department of State Lands, and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that there are identified Goal 5 resources that are included in the proposal. Mostly floodplain and wetland areas adjacent to Indian Ford Creek and White Juice Creek. Those are primarily sort of in the south and eastern portions of the preferred alternative area. And because those resources were identified by our resource agency, so we know that they're there, we know that they're being brought into the city, there's some additional work that's ultimately triggered on behalf of the city once they want to bring this into the UGB. We talked a little bit about this earlier, but what they are required to do is when the properties are going to be annexed, they're required to go through a goal five analysis to effectively replace the existing county standards that are protecting these resources currently. So we have a variety of zoning designations that protect our goal five resources and the city as a part of annexing those properties would have to go through a formal process to identify the resources, come up with a protection plan, whether the same, less or more restrictive than what the county currently puts in place. And then ultimately adopt standards into their zoning code. And then those zones are applied to these individual properties that contain the resources. However, they are not required to go through – our understanding now is that they are not required to go through that Goal 5 work until the UGB effort itself is finalized. So they can start that process quite literally the moment a UGB amendment is ultimately adopted if it is adopted. um but they are not required to put that in place prior to the ugb being moved forward and part of the reason for that is we have existing county protections in place for these goal 5 resources and the modified proposal under the city would keep those protections in place based on the comprehensive plan and text amendments under your first deliberation area tonight so With all that big context, the applicant argues that the UGB alternatives analysis did consider that there were relevant resource areas in the preferred alternative and that there's existing county protections can continue through the interim period, followed by ultimately the city's post-UGB Goal 5 work that's going to be required by state statute. At the August 27th hearing, the city also emphasized that the agency comments that we discussed previously had been addressed by the broader alternatives analysis and ultimately the modified proposal that would maintain the County Goal 5 protections after the UGB expansion. but prior to formal annexation of the lands. Some opposition comments argue that the preferred alternative contains significant wetlands and riparian resources, some wildlife concerns and other related Goal 5 areas, and that the required Goal 5 conflicting use analysis can't be deferred until annexation or development. There's a few different things to talk about here. One is the Goal 14 Factor 3 analysis, which also deals with natural resources lightly, is a separate item, which we've already discussed in a previous issue. We also note that the comments from DLCD and the other various state agencies have explicitly identified Goal 5 resources in the preferred alternative, so we know they're there. But ultimately, those areas and any of the conflicting use analysis work, we now understand that the trigger for those performing that future goal five work can be deferred until after the UGB expansion itself is ultimately complete. So if the UGB expansion is ultimately approved, the city at that point can effectively the next day begin that particular analysis. But they ultimately are required at the very least to complete it before the properties themselves annex. They have to have a program in place before application of city zoning and ultimately future urbanization of those lands. The current DLCD interpretation, again, does not support annexation or any urban zoning or development before all that work is completed. And we note that comments from DLCD do confirm that it can take place following UGB expansion, but prior to annexation. And as the city is again proposing to retain the existing Title 18 zones, including some of the overlay zones that contain Goal 5 resource protections on these properties, even after they're pulled into the UGB, we believe that they have met the required statutory language. Okay. Questions?

Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

All right.

Last one. So the last thing, ultimately, you don't even really need to vote on this particular one because you technically already voted on this one, which is we had a deliberation item at the beginning of this meeting, which dealt with the comprehensive plan and no zone change tax amendments. And ultimately, the current proposal that's under review as a part of the UGB amendment was contingent on that particular proposal moving forward. given that the Planning Commission has ultimately recommended approval of that comprehensive plan and text amendment, staff has no further concerns with the current UGB proposal and the no zone change option.

I do have one concern, and we'll see if anybody else supports it as far as moving up to the commission, and that is the impacts on those properties that do not want to be part of the UGB. I have concerns about the city's declaration that they can use eminent domain. Granted, nobody wants to. I mean, understood. But I'm concerned about property rights and the rights of those who don't want to be part of the city. And I certainly support those who want to develop their property. But I also am cognizant of those who don't want to be part of it. They bought rural lands. They want to stay rural lands. And I don't think they should be forced to develop their property. And so I would quite frankly like to see one of two things happen is either the city – excuse me – agree not to use eminent domain against any of those parcels or leave those properties outside the UGB. That's my personal opinion. I don't know if anybody else has thoughts. Go ahead.

I think, and I may have misunderstood this, but I think I've heard Kyle say a couple times that we can't actually, I mean, maybe we can ask, but we can't. I think I understood that you're saying we can't really ask the applicant to change the application, like this is the application, like we're not suggesting amendments to the application. That's ultimately correct, yeah.

So the specific proposal is this preferred alternative, there are standards that apply to this preferred alternative, including all the analysis that we've gone through in the previous items, and it's The question on the table, again, Commissioner Cyrus, to your points, we can certainly carry some of those general thoughts and concerns forward. The question of whether or not they might use them in a domain or any of those are maybe interesting points of context. But the question of changing the actual selected alternative is not really something that's available to the planning commission. You really can recommend approval or recommend denial. You can recommend denial with... consider these other areas if you want to go that particular direction, but it can't be, I would only approve this if it were modified in this particular way.

And I understand. We essentially have two choices. However, my thought would be to carry those concerns forward to the next level, and that's a negotiation piece between the two commissions. Or the city council and the county commission to decide if some of those are worth discussing because I'm sure it can be amended or adopted or changed at that level.

Of course. The proposal itself, ultimately, the city can modify their proposal however they wish, but it ultimately has to come from the city. It can't be mandated. Go ahead.

I really like where your heart is there because I do think it must be pretty scary for a property owner to feel that they could have their property taken away. So I appreciate you bringing up the point of that in this context to be carried forward.

Any other thoughts? Yeah. Do you want to go to it?

This is not pertaining to this specific. This was more a minutes housekeeping. I believe, Chair Cyrus, after you voted no on item three, you did not vote anymore. Is that correct?

That's the only one I actually voted on.

Okay. I just, and that's more a minutes thing. Like if it's determined, like, you know, item one, two, three. I just, I noticed I only kind of heard your voice on that one item. So that was really it.

Normally as chair, unless I feel very strongly about it or there's a close vote, I typically don't vote.

Okay. That was it.

I had a comment then.

Go ahead.

Yeah. So I think all the time that's been spent on this since what, May 20th was the first one. I think it's been such a great productive conversation for everyone. And I think all the comments and concerns we've raised tonight can be brought forward to the county commission. I think it's great. And there's still more time ahead with what's happening. And I mean, between starting May 28th and where we are now, the City of Sisters withdrew the modification of Title 17. So I think there's time in there where stuff can still change moving forward. So I don't think it's a bad thing with how thorough we've been because there have been what I feel is positive changes that have assuaged some of my concerns with it. So I just want to share that overall thought. And I think it's going to be very lively and productive at the County Commission when it moves forward.

Right. Thank you. Anybody have other comments on this?

I'll comment, Chair, if I may.

Okay.

I just wanted to thank Kyle because this, honestly, these actually first two agenda items were sort of daunting and a little bit confusing. And the... preparation that Kyle went through to put together the matrix for us and explain things very thoroughly. I thought was just very, very helpful. You know, my heart wants to make one decision, but my logic has to make another decision based on the way this has been presented to us. And that kind of did make it a little bit easier. So I just want to thank Kyle for all his hard work because this has been a really long process. He's been very thorough, very knowledgeable, and I really appreciate it.

I would second that.

Of course. Me too.

Thank you very much. All right. Is that everything you need from us on this one?

It is, yeah. There's still one more item, though. Okay, perfect.

All right. Next agenda item. Legislative text amendments to Title 21 in the Deschutes County Code.

So this is largely essentially just a postscript to everything that we just talked about. The City of Sisters has proposed some amendments to Title 21 of the Deschutes County Code. And Title 21 of the Deschutes County Code is ultimately what governs properties that are included in the City of Sisters UGB but are outside of the city limits. We have different titles for all of the incorporated cities. So title 19 is the city of Bend, for example, or 19A technically. We have one for the city of Redmond. And there technically isn't one for the city of Lapine, but only because their UGB and their city limits are coterminous. They're exactly the same. Okay. um but the way these particular code amendments are written is they're just complements to the comprehensive plan amendments and the title 18 amendments that we talked about under the first item but they're intended to just match exactly that language but folded into the title 21 provisions it's a little bit different these amendments than some of our normal text amendments that we might bring before the planning commission and the reason is the joint management agreement between the city of sisters And Deschutes County requires the city is actually the one that leads that particular process. So what they have done is they've taken that proposal to their planning commission, sister city council. The city council has made a recommendation for approval of those particular amendments. And then ultimately we'll be forwarding that recommendation to the board and they'll actually have a hearing on that matter along with the other two matters that you've heard here tonight. There's no requirement that you vote on this particular proposal. It's really just intended to provide you an opportunity to review. It's part of our procedures ordinance. And so you have a broader context that there's technically three parts all moving simultaneously. But they went through their planning commission and city council process last month. And then ultimately, again, they had a unanimous vote of approval, which we'll be bringing to the board probably on the 22nd of October is what it looks like.

So you don't need anything from us on this one.

Unless you have questions. Questions?

Okay, great. So, comments. Do you have any further comments? I've talked plenty.

All right.

Nicole, did you have anything? It's nice to have you back.

Nice to see you all, commissioners. Yeah, just returning, for the record, Nicole Mardell, principal planner. Just returning back from family leave. So just wanted to, you know, again, echo everything that I heard from the commissioners just for the team for working through, you know, such interesting topics with the planning commission. What you have coming, I think, Will will probably highlight in more detail. But just wanted to note that I'm diving into farm stores, which I think will be a really interesting process for the Planning Commission to weigh in on. So we're working on the initial draft of the code right now. We, of course, have the deadline to hopefully adopt it by the start of the new year. So trying to do as much research as we can on a pretty, I would say, unclear bill to try to put in some reasonable local siting standards for you to consider. So more information to come on that. I think we'll be able to bring that to you for a work session at your first meeting in October. And that's all I have. Pass it to Will.

Yeah, thank you. You know, I talked at some length at your last meeting about the upcoming schedule, no changes to that. So the same things, just as Nicole mentioned, the farm stores and the duplex issue we talked about, some changes to Title 22 in relation to the Goal 5 cultural resources. So just a continuation of last one. I won't reiterate all of that. Just also noting that we've been talking about the loading that the board is experiencing here kind of at the end of the year and at the end of a few of their terms. Lots of planned zone changes, lots of legislative actions that you have touched and things that are coming through their space and trying to play air traffic controller this week and make sure that they have time to do that given as we collide into the holidays and some other scheduling issues. So That's eating up a lot of my time right now. And, oh, and last time I talked about that we had a candidate for the Community Wildfire Protection Supervisor's backfill. So that's Lauren Street's backfill. And we do have an accepted candidate there, very excited, starting here in a few weeks. And somebody who came highly recommended and was really excited to get her, thought it was going to be a little bit like other people who wanted her too, and we got her. So very excited to have an excellent team member. That's all. Peter.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have two comments. One, I want to give significant credit to Kyle Collins and Will Groves as it pertains into the Planning Commission as it pertains to the Sisters Urban Growth Boundary Amendment, your thoughtful deliberations today. on basically all three packages is incredibly, well, first of all, that was very professional, but the package itself was so unprecedented. There was a lot to navigate. You had three public hearings, significant testimony. And I just thank you for your patience, for following the process, the procedures, which allowed you ultimately to make it some informed recommendations to to kyle and to will for collaborating extensively with the city of sisters not only on the process which led to three public hearings but to assist as much as we could or the county could to have them address those imperfections in title 21 um which as you discussed this evening required some significant companion amendments to ensure that goal 5 protections were carried forward and that was not something that was foreseen um heading into the summer with staff uh you know uh scheduled leave and other other projects so um Kyle's performance today there's a lot of oxygen that he had to expend to guide you and I I think it's it's illustrative of just the the level of commitment that both of them had while Nicole was out on her important leave nonetheless um to to put the city in a position to present their proposal in a way that um can be justified so thank you uh for the planning commission for your patience and stamina and endurance to to make those recommendations today for staff or for assisting the city. The only other comment I had, and I heard this today at an apartment head meeting, I don't think it's a surprise. I think you can expect to have this meeting with the Board of County Commissioners. This has to do with the joint meeting that we have annually. It's typically in the fall. Um, nonetheless, just given the changes that are forthcoming with the board of county commissioners. Really starting in 2027, I think there's there was direction from the board to not have a joint work session this fall and instead to have it at some point in 2027. So I want to just state that their commitment to collaborating with the Planning Commission remains intact. It's just that the company is aging and the board currently, given all the priorities that they have to undertake for the next essentially three and a half months is significant. I think they're just maximizing their time accordingly. So that's all I have. It's great to see all of you this evening. Great. Thank you. Susan.

Oh, nothing more really than what I already said. Really good meeting. Really, really good meeting. I'm glad that we came to, we did our jobs. And again, big thanks to Kyle. I hope you get like a big fat raise or something for all your hard work. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner Williams.

I would agree with Commissioner Allman. Kyle, you did a fantastic job. The matrix was excellent, very detailed, very descriptive. Appreciate all your work. This was one of the topics that gave me probably the most of an ill stomach over the last couple months of reading and updating and just appreciate your work. Nicole, welcome back. Good to see you.

You're beaming and radiant. and i've already let will and peter know i will not be at the next meeting on september 24th great thanks all right commissioner kelsey um yeah no extra comment yeah just thank you again kyle and um especially like answering my questions kind of beyond this as well and thank you staff and thank you chair for for leaving commissioner stop camp yeah just same gratitude thanks planning staff that was a big topic

Yeah, Kyle, you really articulated everything well. It was just really easy to follow. And that's saying something for incredibly dense technical information for people that don't do this full time. So I was really nervous about this evening's meeting for whatever reason. I just was like, oh gosh, what's going to happen? And I was just really proud of how everyone I don't know. I thought it was pretty professional and people were able to express themselves and just feel so respectful. So I don't know. I thought it went really well.

Did you expect less?

No, I really didn't. Yeah, I really didn't. But sometimes it's like having people here and seeing how we don't normally have a lot of people that come for deliberations. We usually get a lot of public testimony, but sometimes it's just us deliberating. So it was just kind of, I was proud to see how everyone interacted with each other and with the public testimony as we were digesting it. So it was cool.

And I would second everybody's comments, and I appreciate the dialogue, and thank you for the organization. It was very helpful. Kind of did paint us into a little bit of a box on keeping us legal in what we're supposed to be doing, and I will say...