Sisters will revamp code

Last updated 9/20/2005 at Noon

The City of Sisters is looking for state assistance to overhaul its Development Code.

Ever since it was adopted some five years ago, the code has been a thorn in the side of planners, developers and city officials alike. All agree it is full of conflicts, unclear definitions and inconsistencies.

The city is applying for the state Code Assistance Program. It is administered through the Department of Land Conservation and Development and Oregon Department of Transportation’s Transportation and Growth Management Program.

The program would provide consultants to work with an advisory committee to fix the bugs in the code.

Those bugs became obvious to planners, city councilors and citizens during the debate over a McDonald’s Restaurant and a gas station and convenience store.

The code’s vagueness about definitions of drive-up and drive-through businesses; confusion about spacing standards and other questions complicated the approval process and, according to City Councilor Sharlene Weed, made what should have been a clear-cut approval or disapproval murky and dissatisfying to citizens involved in the process.

“I don’t want to go through another McDonald’s,” she said at a council workshop on Thursday.

City Planner Bill Adams endorsed the application for the state program, saying that staff could do the repair work on the code themselves, but they do not have time.

He said staff has already identified problem areas.

“We have a jump start,” he said. “We know, kind of, what needs to be done.”

Adams emphasized that this would be a repair job, not a complete re-working of the code.

“I want to emphasize that this is not a total re-write of the code,” he said. “We’re fixing the code.”

Councilor Lon Kellstrom asked whether the city might be better off chucking the code and starting over.

“I don’t believe so,” Adams said. “It’s salvageable. It’s a good starting point; it’s a good foundation — but there’s flaws in it.”

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Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.