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Wednesday, December 16, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
PERMITS: Impact
of findings is not
yet clear
Continued from page 1
permit (TUP).
Hung, owner of Bend/
Sisters Garden RV Park,
secured a long-term lease
from property owner Nick
Verosko on his property
located on the northwest cor-
ner of Cascade Avenue and
Oak Street, which had sat
vacant for nine years after
removal of a Chevron service
station.
Hung’s intention for the
property was to hold a variety
of events, including promoter
Richard Esterman’s Artists’
Marketplace on the week-
end of the Sisters Outdoor
Quilt Show (SOQS). Hung
said at the time her desire
was to bring more visitors
both during the summer and
in the slower shoulder sea-
sons. She has plans to build
a hotel on property in Pine
Meadow Village across from
Les Schwab Tires. Part of
her motivation was to attract
more off-season tourists to
help support the viability of
the proposed hotel.
After Hung’s application
for a TUP was approved by
City staff, a firestorm ensued,
as full-time business owners
flooded City Hall with letters
and emails voicing concerns
about the visual aesthetics of
a “tent city” at the entrance
to the newly refurbished
Cascade Avenue, and parking
in the area.
The Artists’ Marketplace
was held over the 2014 Quilt
Show weekend and proved to
be successful for its vendors.
It did not take place under the
language of the TUP granted
Hung; rather it went forward
under the transient merchant
license (TML). In order to
avoid each vendor having
to pay the individual TML
fee in addition to the fees to
Esterman for their booths,
Hung paid the City $15,000
to cover all the fees.
After calling up the staff
decision regarding the TUP,
the Planning Commission
allowed it to stand, with
several amendments. City
Council subsequently
adopted an amended version
of Hung’s TUP for multi-ven-
dor events on her leased lot.
It was the conditions imposed
by the amendments that were
the basis of Hung’s appeal
of the Council decision to
LUBA in October 2014.
During all the public hear-
ings and deliberations sur-
rounding the TUP issued to
Hung, the City was attempt-
ing to be responsive to all
parties involved. As is often
the case in those situations,
no one was totally happy with
the outcome, least of all Hung
and Esterman. They main-
tained that charging transient-
merchant fees for Esterman’s
event, after he had secured a
City business license as an
event coordinator, was a sup-
pression of the applicant’s
constitutional right to artistic
expression and represented
fear of competition.
In August 2014, Council
began in earnest to address
the issues of all business
licenses and fees in an effort
to streamline City code by
closing loopholes and sim-
plifying the language and
requirements. Local busi-
nesses had been asking the
City to do this for a long time,
and it had been put off until it
no longer could be.
The City Council just
recently passed code revisions
that change how the City
handles licensing, includ-
ing elimination of the TUP.
Whether or not these revi-
sions will have any bearing
on the issues in the remand
remains to be seen. Esterman
filed a letter of concern with
the City regarding those code
changes, stating his belief
that they targeted his use of
the lot on Cascade and Oak
and alleging “manipulation
by the Sisters Outdoor Quilt
Show, the City Manager, and
staff.”
He believes his event
should be grandfathered in.
LUBA finally issued
their ruling in October 2015,
remanding, in part, the appeal
of Hung’s land-use applica-
tion back to the City Council
to address three questions and
make findings of fact to sup-
port the City’s determination.
The code sections at issue on
this remand have now been
removed from the City code.
• Is a temporary-use per-
mit the equivalent of a spe-
cial-event permit?
The City replied that the
term “special event permit”
is not defined anywhere in
the Sisters Code and the City
does not — and never has —
issued a special-event per-
mit. They are not the same
because a TUP is a land-use
action under the development
code and TML are a form of
business license issued under
the municipal code. The
City’s position was supported
by a number of findings of
fact.
• Does the City exempt
city business-license hold-
ers from paying individual
transient-merchant license
fees for their individual ven-
dors and does the City not
require the business-license
holder from ever paying the
transient-merchant fee?
The City finds that if an
existing business will have
multiple transient merchants
using their property, each
of the transient merchants
must obtain a TML and pay
the required fee. If the exist-
ing business is operating as a
transient merchant, they are
required to obtain the tran-
sient-merchant license, but do
not pay the permit fee. This
is because City code allows
a business that is operating
within the city and that has
a valid business license, to
obtain a TML to sell the same
items typically sold at the
business’s permanent loca-
tion. Staff proposed 10 find-
ings of fact in support of their
position.
• Does issuing a City busi-
ness license to conduct busi-
ness as an “event coordina-
tor” constitute issuing a spe-
cial-event permit within the
meaning of the code section
5.24.120(5)?
Hung asserts that when
the City issued its business
license to Richard Esterman
as an event coordinator that it
also issued Esterman and his
business a special-event per-
mit under the City code. City
staff disagrees. Issuing a busi-
ness license under one section
of the code does not under
any reading of the code issue
any separate form of permit.
No one present in Council
chambers provided any testi-
mony for or against, and there
was no request to leave the
record open.
The current status of the
appeal is that LUBA has
issued the remand to the City
and closed their files. The
Council approved the find-
ings of staff in regard to the
three questions from LUBA.
If there is no further action by
Hung, in the way of another
appeal or a law suit, the City
is not required to do anything
more.
There are, however, unan-
swered questions still remain-
ing. Will Hung be refunded
all or part of her $15,000 in
fees paid in August 2014?
Will she accept the City’s
findings in response to the
LUBA remand or will a fur-
ther appeal be filed? Will
the newly revised codes be
enough to avoid future con-
tentious appeals?
Reporting by Jim
Cornelius and John Griffith
contributed to this story.
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