Bend new UGB plan distilled to three scenarios

            Bend is getting closer to the finish line on the protracted process to establish a new urban growth boundary.

            And the most notable conclusion in a September 23 executive summary appears to favor ultimate expansion and growth of “complete communities” with an emphasis on the city’s southeast edge.

            But whether the city stumbles again or gains support from the state will not be settled until the final recommendations are due in April of 2016.

            Since 2010 the city, appointed community members and consultants have been working to fix on “remand” a plan that the state Department of Land Conservation and Development rejected.

         Among other issues, the state said the plan did not adequately address the existing supply of land within present city limits that could be developed as “infill,” and did not provide for greater urban density rather than outward expansion.

            That effort was based on a start year of 2009 to define a plan that would accommodate land for growth for 20 years to 2028 as mandated by Oregon land use law.

            If the current process is completed as scheduled next year, it would essentially be a 12-year plan given the 7 years that have passed since the rejected plan started.

Altogether the team has estimated the UGB expansion could include an additional 2,000 acres with 700 acres earmarked for residential use; 600 for employment; 600 for public facilities and 200 classified for “other” activity.          

Both the UGB proposal returned on remand and the one in progress forecast the need for 16,681 new residential units, albeit with a dramatically smaller expanded acreage in the latter.

The new plan recognizes the need for city policies to accommodate a housing mix that would be 55 percent single family homes, 10 percent single family attached and 35 percent multi-family. That compares with Bend’s historical mix of 78, 3 and 18 percent respectively in those categories. 
         The shifting balance in the proposal  to fewer single family homes and more attached and mult-family units acknowledges a consensus that Bend lacks more affordable housing that could potentially be provided with homes on smaller lots and additional apartment and condo-townhome construction.

    But housing demand in the city has for the most part leaned to single family homes on larger lots. To create an incentive for developers and builders the city has begun discussing ways to encourage building a different mix of housing, perhaps by reducing fees such as system development charges, or SDCs, required for new construction.

        Consultants working with the city on the UGB estimate there are currently 7,733 acres of developed residential lots and 2,775 acres classified as “employment” properties.

There are an estimated 2,555 acres that have 4,572 tax lots that could potentially be divided under current zoning, or “developed with infill potential.”

Another 2,859 tax lots on 1,846 acres of residential property are vacant.

            In the employment land category there are 3,452 developed tax lots on 2,775 acres and 247 vacant lots on 1,048 acres.

            As presented in July, the revised UGB proposal  is structured around three UGB scenarios that vary in emphasis on location and land use. Included would be zones of mostly employment districts with little or no residential; residential with local employment;  or residential with significant employment and larger commercial areas.

            The UGB participants also evaluated three supplemental analysis areas with accompanying maps, (SAAMs), that according to the executive summary were each considered with the same criteria that included “levels of employment and residential growth and the same assumptions about development inside the UGB as the expansion scenarios.”

            Of the three scenarios the top performer was one that the earlier June report described as “...focuses on creating new ‘complete communities’ with a mix of housing and employment in all quadrants of the City. Nearly all expansion areas provide a full mix of uses, including housing, employment areas, shopping/services, and school and parks. This scenario emphasizes southeastern expansion, but includes smaller expansions to the northeast, west, north and south.”

UGB Scenarios- Sources:City of Bend and Bend Bulletin

            However, the executive summary qualifies that the top Scenario (2.1) of the three, “...is only a starting point for crafting the proposed UGB update.”

            The next step will be to take a more indepth look at “subareas” in the study and refine those in relation to state land use Goal 14 standards for land development.

            Goal 14 requires UGB plans address, “1) efficient accommodation of identified land needs; 2) orderly and economic provision of public facilities and services; 3) comparative environmental, social, economic and energy consequences; and 4) compatibility of proposed urban uses with nearby agricultural and forest activities occurring ...outside the UGB.”

            Much of the material in the executive summary relates to the big picture of where expansion could occur and generally what type of development would be preferable.

            A presentation to the Central Oregon Women’s Council of Realtors by Damian Syrnyk, Bend senior city planner, provides more “on the ground” details of potential new criteria for development.

            Syrnyk’s presentation revealed possible revisions in the city’s development code could involve:

·        lower minimum lot sizes and property setbacks

·        reduction of parking ratios for residential housing

·        more diversity in RS zone (residential single family) housing types

·        greater density in RS and RM (residential multi-family) zones

·        requirement for master plans for large tracks of vacant residential land

·        new development patterns in “opportunity sites” that would allow approximately 1,400 more housing units and 700 jobs in targeted areas than now allowed

Concurrent with the umbrella UGB process, another group comprised of city and community members has focused on a “Central West  Side Plan” for parts of the city generally east of the Deschutes River. That plan would be meshed into the UGB process, city officials have said.

            City officials and community members involved in that plan announced recently that a survey with more than 1,300 respondents favored less density on the west side of Bend.

Moreover, the UGB executive summary released September 23 notes that refinement of the potential west side subarea could entail reduction of, “commercial and industrial use.”

            The early results of that process involving 23 committee members opens the option for building heights up to five stories in certain west side locations where commercial activity is greatest including the College Way and Newport Avenue roundabout below the Central Oregon Community College campus.

            But it would limit building height in areas closest to residential areas such as around the Galveston and 14^th Avenue roundabout.

           Initial expansion of the UGB boundary is only for the state mandated planning process and does not concurrently change the city limits.

            Moving into October the UGB team will hold a public open house Oct. 1 to present the plan in progress and is also gathering comments from an online survey that began Sept. 24.

            More information on the UGB process is available at the City of Bend website link: http://bend.or.us/index.aspx?page=1290 including a link to the online survey.