The Committee to Save Sisters has asked the Sisters City Council to place a measure on the May 19 ballot which would require developers to pay the maximum systems development charges allowed by law.

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In a letter to the city council, committee chair Virginia Groom said, "we believe that Sisters taxpayers are subsidizing the cost of growth... cost of capital improvements caused by new growth should be paid by new growth, not put on the backs of others."

The 10-member committee submitted a ballot measure to amend the city's charter to allow maximum systems development charges. According to Groom, the measure was drafted with the assistance of Howard Paine of the Alliance for Responsible Land Use in Deschutes County, based on a Salem measure.

The measure includes an exemption for nonprofit-provided affordable housing such as Habitat for Humanity.

Groom said the systems development charges would be for parks, streets, including storm drainage, and sewers, if a system is eventually built.

Groom acknowledged that the City of Sisters currently has no systems development charges in place for parks or streets. She said the measure would apply to those charges when the city establishes them.

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The city does charge the maximum allowable SDCs for connection to the city's water system.

The committee requested council action at their February 12 meeting.