Bend wants input on expansion

City hopes to involve more residents in work on growth boundary

By Hillary Borrud / The Bulletin

Published: August 29. 2013 4:00AM PST

 

Bend officials want to take a new approach to updating the city’s growth plan, and include more of the community in decision making.

“One of the lessons that I’ve learned in my work on (urban growth boundaries) and observing this process is it’s really important to involve as many people, with as many opinions, as possible, and to allow the citizens of Bend to have a direct say and stake in this big planning effort,” said Principal Planner Brian Rankin.

“It’s a different approach than what we have been taking for years, and I think it will pay off in the long run.”

Bend recently relaunched an effort to fix problems in a 2009 plan to expand city boundaries. The city likely needs to hire a consultant in order to improve the public process and finish the growth plan update by April 2016, according to planning officials.

At a Sept. 18 City Council meeting, a task force is expected to recommend that the city ask consultants to submit proposals for this outreach and planning process. The cost is unknown at this point.

In Oregon, the urban growth boundary is the limit around a city beyond which urban development, such as new housing, businesses and related water and sewer lines, is not allowed. The state requires cities to prove the need to expand their boundaries.

Bend began this process in 2004, according to the city’s website. City councilors approved a plan to expand the boundary by approximately 8,500 acres in 2009. But state officials rejected it in 2010, sending it back to the city to fix problems the state identified.

Earlier this year, a state commission gave the city until summer 2017 to correct the expansion plan.

So planners and elected officials must decide how much to update the 2009 plan, which now includes information that is several years old.

Rankin is researching how to include plans for a new Oregon State University-Cascades Campus in the urban growth boundary expansion. The 2009 expansion plan called for a new four-year university, but it was supposed to be north of the current city limits, in the city’s mixed-use Juniper Ridge development.

Depending upon how the city adds OSU-Cascades to its growth plan, it could slow the process because of additional work and public process.

It’s important to include the university in the plan, “but we need to do it in such a way that it doesn’t require additional work that will require additional resources,” Rankin said.

Assistant City Manager Jon Skidmore said the city is working closely with OSU-Cascades to plan locations for new interim and permanent campuses.

“It’s obviously something we need to blend into our (urban growth boundary) discussion, but I’m confident we’ll be able to do that without jeopardizing the remand effort,” Skidmore said.

Consultants might suggest strategies that the city has not considered, Rankin said.

In order to compress the timeline to complete the growth boundary project, Rankin said, the city might need to have several advisory groups — citizen committees that would research and weigh in on different aspects of future city development — meeting simultaneously. This would also increase the number of community members who give input on the growth plan.

— Reporter: 541-617-7829, hborrud@bendbulletin.com