OSU-Cascades Westside campus foes file appeal

Opponents of a planned Westside campus for OSU-Cascades filed an appeal Monday of a recent city hearings officer’s decision approving the site plan for the 10.4-acre location and urged city councilors to hear the appeal, rather than let a state land-use appeals board make the ruling.

Councilors are scheduled to decide whether to hear the Truth in Site group’s widely expected appeal at their meeting Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

One issue they face, beyond the hot political issue in an election season, is the strong likelihood that any decision they make is likely to be appealed to the state Land Use Board of Appeals anyway.

As a result, in previous such land-use cases, councilors have weighed whether a decision to not hear a matter and let the hearings officer’s decision stand as the city’s final ruling could speed the process.

In its 17-page notice of appeal, Truth in Site laid out 20 appeal issues and numerous errors they claimed were made by city Hearings Officer Ken Helm in his 94-page decision issued Sept. 2, such as “rejecting out of hand” or “marginalizing” testimony from critics and their traffic engineer about traffic conditions and negative impacts the proposed campus would have.

They claim the hearings officer erred when it found the college, planned initially on 10.4 acres, need not master plan the 46-acre former cinder pit north of the campus site which is being considered for possible future expansion.

In fact, they noted that the school sought and obtained a letter from the current owner, 4-R Equipment, saying it would not sign off on a master planning application – a move they termed “disgraceful” for a public university.

OSU-Cascades Vice President Becky Johnson called the appeal disappointing, and a waste of taxpayer money.

“We know that we’re in this for the long haul, and we’ll see it through,” she told NewsChannel 21. “We think this is the best site, so we’re going to stick with it and play it out until we come to some conclusion.

The appellants also claim the hearings officer erred in finding the campus to be an allowed use in the CL (limited commercial) zoning district, and that the plans comply with standards for Century Drive access. They also target approval of the “parking management plan,” suggesting “the City Council did not intend a measure of flexibility designed to bring about absurd results.”

Among other issues they raise: “no feasible enforcement mechanism” to require that all faculty, staff and students register and market their vehicles with ID stickers, and “no certainty” on timing of a condition requiring the school to file an updated parking plan should area problems persist – or close-by areas to add parking.

The foes claim the site’s traffic impact analysis and parking master plan “rely on different assumptions, particularly with regard to pedestrian, bike and multi-modal travel,” and refers to the PMP as “unreasonably optimistic,” making the traffic analysis “flawed.” They also chastised the school for doing a one-day traffic analysis on Nov. 21, 2013, at the “nadir” of summer or winter tourism traffic through the area.

The appeal concludes by urging councilors to hear the matter, saying it has “significant public policy and community-wide implications for the city, such as the development code’s master planning requirements.

“The applicant has intentionally understated the scope of its project,” the foes claim. “It proposes to plunk a major state university on a two-lane local street, between busy existing roundabouts, and claims there will be no traffic impacts.”

“At the same time, locating this campus at Juniper Ridge (on Bend’s northeast side) would ostensibly have required between $30 million and $70 million in improvements to the transportation system,” the appeal states. “Something is wrong with this picture. Many things are wrong with it.”

“…(I)t is now up to the council to determine that master planning is not an empty phrase – that it means something in Bend,” the notice says. “If this project does not warrant it, no project ever will.”

If the council doesn’t hear the matter, an attorney for Truth in Site said his client likely will take the appeal to LUBA.

Johnson said although the appeal will mean delays in the development process, OSU-Cascades still plans on opening the new campus next fall.