“I said don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
till it’s gone
They paved paradise, put up a
parking lot...” Joni Mitchell
As written and sung by Joni Mitchell
in the early 1970s the lyrics from her Big Yellow Taxi might be revised slightly
to reflect the angst and anger of residents in one of Bend’s oldest golf communities.
In this case the “paradise” in
question could be the decades old Rivers Edge Golf Course, and the "parking lot" a
proposal to raze it for 372 housing units.
A conceptual site plan filed with city officials in mid-March includes 71 of the 142 acre golf course to remain open space. But the remaining acreage would be split between 47% for 175 single family homes and the other 53% for 197 townhomes.
Now there is a brewing legal battle
involving residents who say prominent Bend builder Pahlisch Homes, and entities
controlled by the Wayne Purcell and family which developed the golf course, will violate
their propety rights if the course is closed and used for housing.
Pahlisch and Purcell announced the
builder’s plans for the course on April 27
of this year, more than a month after filing the conceptual plan to the city planning department. County records do not show a sale or change in ownership as of
early August. Also pre-application documents titled The Uplands-Community Master Plan are in the city planning database as filed by Rivers Edge Investments LLC, whose Oregon business registration is in the name of Wayne Purcell.
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| Gray=open space. Yellow SF homes. Other townhomes |
The news release announcing developer plans only referred to an “intention” by Purcell, the top executive of several Purcell related corporations and limited liability companies, to sell to Pahlisch. It noted a long business relationship between the Pahlisch and Purcell entities including many units built on Purcell property at Rivers Edge.
An "intention" to sell
“With great intention, our family
has chosen Pahlisch Homes as the best fit as the next generation of stewards of
the property,” Purcell was quoted.
The recent legal action filed by a
group of homeowners asserts that some of the homes recently built by Pahlisch were
listed and sold with the golf course mentioned as an amenity.
As stated in a Frequently Asked Questions section (FAQ) of
the opponents website,https://saveriversedge.org:
“They never told prospective
purchasers that once homes along the golf course were sold, they planned to
plow up the golf course and fill in the open space with more homes. This
amounts to a bait-and-switch that is fundamentally unfair.”
There are now yard signs urging “Save
Rivers Edge” dotting Mt. Washington Drive which runs along the property, and
also sprinkled throughout neighboring Awbrey Butte residential areas.
Key to the opposition’s legal
argument is the theory of “equitable servitude,” which is described in the FAQs
as, “a legal requirement burdening certain real property (in this case, the
golf course) for the benefit of other real propeties" (in this case, the homes
along the golf course).
Through “express and implied representations”
that buyers would be part of a golf course community Pahlisch was able to
market the homes at higher prices, and Purcell to benefit from higher prices in
selling lots to Pahlisch, the opponents argue.
The controversy erupts as Bend is moving
to complete a change in the city code intended to provide more “middle housing”
that could open home ownership to more buyers in a critically tight market.
State legislation, HB 2001, requires
the city to provide more multi-family units in traditional single family zoned
areas. Rivers Edge is zoned residential standard, or RS, for single family homes.
Higher density and less parking
Pahlisch’s preliminary proposal
could fit the city’s objective for more multi-family units as the code changes
are discussed. But some observers caution that the city should be more careful
in crafting certain specific requirements given the state has allowed until
2022 to comply with a plan.
Among the sensitive issues in the proposed
city code changes is the size of lots. As now drafted, a quadraplex could be built
on a lot as small as 4,500 square feet in a neighborhood zoned for single
family homes.
Another proposed change would reduce
offstreet parking requirements from space for 1.5 vehicles per unit to a single
space.
The lower parking requirement has
resulted in complaints that it would create heavier use of onstreet parking in
many areas already overburdened with congestion even without multi-family
units.
Some proponents have said the
opponents are, in effect, falling into the NIMBY (not in my back yard) category.
They argue that less parking would encourage alternative transportion including
public transit and bicycles.
But skeptics maintain that Bend has
a traditionally car-dependent population, along with widely dispersed retail, commercial and
industrial facilities and a small mass transit sytem with limited routes, mostly
along major arterials.
Traffic congestion around Rivers Edge
Apart from the Rivers Edge plaintiffs
who are suing to stop housing construction on the golf course, the project would
face considerable obstacles given the already heavily congested traffic along
Mt. Washington Drive.
There are a half dozen streets from
residential areas that now access Mt. Washington in the area of Rivers Edge, to
the east where the arterial ends at the congested intersection with US 97/3rd Street business corridor,
the Bend Parkway and Division Street. Often vehicles queue up for delays of two traffic light changes.
Mt. Washington also serves as a
major route to the west connecting that intersection around Awbrey Butte to
Central Oregon Community College and several other neighborhoods along the
route.
Pahlisch representatives came to a July
public meeting on their golf course development proposal with few details, instead
framing the discussion as more of a listening effort for community input.
The company has outlined general information on the project in a website, www.futureofriversedge.com.
Moving forward, “In the coming
months Pahlisch Homes will work wth the City of Bend, land-use and
transportation planning teams, neighbors, and community members to complete a
plan for the future of River’s Edge and the surrounding lands,” the website FAQs note.
