Failed to execute CGI : Win32 Error Code = 3
A one-way couplet won't be part of Sisters' plans for the immediate future.
A joint workshop of the Sisters City Council and the city's planning commission
October 29 concluded that language proposed by the Oregon Department of
Transportation that would have allowed for a couplet should be removed from the
city's comprehensive plan.
The possibility of a couplet was reintroduced last month after ODOT was asked
to comment on the plan. The agency submitted seven pages of suggested
additions, including language that would have allowed a couplet and that
"changes in specific alignment of proposed public road and non-state highway
projects shall be permitted without land use review."
A couplet was rejected by the citizen's committee that initially designed the
transportation element of the comprehensive plan update, begun in 1990, and by
the Sisters City Council.
The draft of the transportation element that City Planner Neil Thompson
presented to the workshop modified ODOT's suggestions but left in the proposal
for "alternative couplet alignments".
"I think we should look the word couplet in the face and not be afraid of it,"
Thompson said. "It's not a taboo, it's a word and I don't think we should be
afraid of it."
Thompson argued that ODOT's realignment of the east end of Hood Avenue to a
near 90-degree turn when the Sisters Pumphouse was built made construction of a
couplet impossible.
"I interpreted that to mean that ODOT was throwing in the towel on that,"
Thompson said.
Several Sisters residents did not agree.
Leslee Bangs, a former Sisters city planner, argued that Sisters needs to
protect itself from being subject to ODOT's agenda.
"As a citizen, I am somewhat cynical about ODOT," Bangs said. "I think you have
to look at what they are trying to accomplish, which is to move traffic as
quickly as possible. We may have very different interests."
Bangs also urged planners to document traffic counts and delineate traffic
routes specifically in the plan.
James Massey, an attorney and property owner in Sisters, argued that the
provisions ODOT wants in the plan could jeopardize local control of
Sisters' transportation needs.
"I read those (recommendations) taken together as ODOT wanting the envelope
pushed to have maximum authority to do what they want without land-use
review," Massey said.
"As a property owner, I think it stinks. As a citizen and a property owner, I
would urge the city to do the opposite and retain the maximum amount of control
in Sisters."
Planning commission members and city councilors agreed that Sisters should
retain the power of land-use review.
Planning commission president Daryl Carper said that the state Land
Conservation and Development Commission, which will review the
comprehensive plan update, would never reject the plan because Sisters
insisted on local control.
"I don't think LCDC or anyone else can knock us down for having our own
review," he said.
Thompson said he was instructed to remove all references to a couplet from
the plan and to eliminate the ODOT approval process that was perceived as
circumventing land-use review.
Thompson also agreed to incorporate the documentation and specific delineation
of traffic routes proposed in the work session. The planners also acknowledged
the need to make the text of the plan and the transportation map agree with
each other.
The planning commission will work on the proposed changes at their regular
November 20 meeting at 7:30 p.m. at city hall.
