Sisters has to fully justify its desire to expand the city's Urban Growth Boundary in the proposed comprehensive plan.

That was the message Deschutes County staff planner Brian Harrington gave the Sisters Urban Area Planning Commission at their Wednesday, November 19, meeting.

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"Basically I'm here to give you a friendly heads up on what's going to be the focus as this thing moves through the legal process," Harrington said.

Harrington indicated the county planning commission and the state Land Conservation and Development Commission would give particular scrutiny to plans to expand onto "resource lands" such as forest and farm lands.

The comprehensive plan calls for such expansion in the area of the high school, the Lundgren Mill site north of town, the Barclay Ranch area and the McKinney Butte area. Such expansion calls for exceptions to be made to statewide planning goals designed to protect those types of land.

Harrington advised the commission to shore up the findings that back up the city's plans.

"Findings for those goal exceptions have to be legally defensible," Harrington said.

He advised that traffic impact studies should be part of the findings, and sources of funding for infrastructure improvements required by development of those lands should be identified.

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Those recommendations concerned city planner Neil Thompson.

"I don't have the resources to do a traffic study," Thompson told The Nugget.

Thompson expressed frustration with the difficulties in getting the comprehensive plan finalized. The update of the city's plan has been underway for almost seven years.

Part of the reason the process is bogged down now is that the plan must pass through many hands before it returns to Sisters for final approval by the Sisters City Council. The city/county intergovernmental agreement requires the county to scrutinize and essentially sign off on the plan before it is sent to state agencies for review.

The county has had the plan for review since December of 1996.

The county has told the City of Sisters that they would like to revise the intergovernmental agreement so the county has a lesser role in administering matters that occur within the city's urban area but outside the city limits.

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Harrington indicated that the planning commission that Sisters may want to change the agreement before plodding on with the comprehensive plan process.