18
Wednesday, March 27, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
HAYDEN: Council
will hear housing
development plan next
Continued from page 1
McKenzie Meadows Village.
At the earlier March 7
Planning Commission pub-
lic hearing, there was a
great deal of testimony from
Village at Cold Springs resi-
dents citing safety and liv-
ability concerns if the streets
are connected between
the two Hayden develop-
ments. The Homeowners
Association (HOA) favored
the installation of emer-
gency gates accessible to fire,
police, and medical personnel
in the event of an emergency.
Otherwise, the gates would
remain closed to limit the
flow of traffic cutting through
Village at Cold Springs,
which has narrow, privately
maintained streets.
The City granted Hayden
the variance on the streets in
2005 in exchange for greater
density of housing. Because
the narrow streets didn9t meet
City code standards, they
became the responsibility
of the HOA for any and all
maintenance and repairs. For
this reason, the HOA consid-
ers them private streets.
City staff contends they
are public streets with pri-
vate maintenance. According
to current City code and the
Transportation Safety Plan
(TSP), city streets should
be designed to ensure a grid
pattern for increased con-
nectivity throughout the City.
Cul de sacs and dead-end
streets are discouraged.
The HOA9s attorney, Ed
Fitch, stated in his letter to the
Planning Commission, <The
Village at Cold Springs was
approved back in 2005. In its
approval decision, the City
of Sisters approved substan-
dard streets in the Village at
Cold Springs&These streets
were not designed to have
through traffic. The City also
authorized these streets to be
privately owned by the HOA
and privately maintained.=
Commissioners received
additional written comments
after the March 7 hear-
ing from citizens as well as
agency submittals from the
traffic engineer, the City
engineer, the Sisters School
District, and Hayden Homes.
Two of the Commissioners
who participated in the delib-
erations and voting on March
21, Bob Wright and David
Gentry, were not present at
the March 7 public hearing
but stated they believed they
were prepared to consider and
vote on the issues.
The issue of the gate and
the timing of the multi-family
residential (MFR) develop-
ment took up the most time
over the two-and-a-half hour
meeting. Staff had prepared
a detailed decision matrix of
all the issues that needed to
be addressed in order to reach
decisions about approval of
the documents before the
commission.
In the end, the commis-
sioners followed staff recom-
mendations on all 16 issues,
with the removal of one
phrase.
The question of delivery
of affordable housing was
brought into the discussion.
Sharlene Weed, for-
mer City councilor, execu-
tive director of Habitat
for Humanity, and chair-
man of the Housing Policy
Advisory Board, said in writ-
ten testimony to the Planning
Commission and City
Council:
<The draft Development
Agreement exempts Hayden
Homes from paying a future
fee (Construction Excise Tax
3 CET) that would create
a fund to help build much-
needed affordable housing.
This agreement is a bad deal
for our town and is unfair to
other developers.
<In exchange for pay-
ing $50,000 into a fund for
affordable housing, Hayden
will be exempted from paying
a future CET. The fee can be
up to one percent of the per-
mit value of the home. So for
a home that costs $250,000,
a payment of $2,500 would
be paid into the CET.
Hayden plans to build around
200 homes in McKenzie
Meadows. If Hayden were
to pay $2,500 per home, that
would amount to $500,000.
Paying just $50,000 is a great
deal for Hayden and a rotten
deal for our town.=
George Slape of Bend,
who is a director on the First
Story (Hayden9s charitable
arm) board and a member of
the Housing Policy Advisory
Board, submitted his thoughts
on the subject:
<I encourage you to probe
further before accepting the
claim that the City is get-
ting short shrift on affordable
housing with this agreement.
The cost of land and con-
struction to build 20 afford-
able homes in McKenzie
Meadows is roughly $4 mil-
lion. $100,000 per lot in land
acquisition and development
cost and $100,000 on aver-
age in construction per home.
This financial contribution
being made to the housing
needs in Sisters is a much
greater value than that poten-
tial total revenue from a yet-
to-be determined construction
excise tax.=
The last two issues before
the Planning Commission
dealt with the Hill Street off-
set intersection and the loca-
tion of McKinney Ranch
Road.
During the course of delib-
erations, a consensus check
was done regarding the gate/
no gate issue. Four commis-
sioners indicated they favored
fully developed rights-of-way
(ROW) and no gates. Three
indicated a preference for
an alternative proposal that
would require fully improved
ROW connections, with
gates at Hill and Williamson,
and a mid-block pedestrian
connection.
There was discussion that
providing the gates allowed
flexibility to have them open
or closed depending on what
the actual traffic situation
turns out to be. Following
the 4-3 consensus sampling,
many of the people in the
chamber walked out.
President of the Village
at Cold Springs HOA, Doug
Wills, told The Nugget, <The
Planning Commission seems
more worried about codes
that are obsolete than they are
about the citizens of Sisters
who live in Village at Cold
Springs. We are citizens of
Sisters and they9re voting
against us. They just rolled
over.=
The final vote of six com-
missioners recommending
approval to the City Council
includes fully connecting
Hill and Williamson with no
emergency gates. Nagel voted
against approval because of
the gate issue.