La Pine to take broader look at Wickiup Junction
La Pine city staff have been working with ODOT to begin analyzing the scope of a Wickiup Junction refinement plan.
City Manger Cory Misley said Wednesday evening that the plan is in the beginning stages. It encompasses the entire Wickiup Junction, not just the ill-fated railroad overpass that ODOT was forced to halt due to unexpectedly soft soil.
A refinement plan looks at a geographical area and makes recommendations for long-term transportation.
For La Pine, that is First Street to the northern city limit. The goal is to have the refinement plan ready by this fall or winter.
Misley said there is going to be a lot of public involvement, especially from property owners and business owners in that area, to make it a safer transportation corridor.
The city wants to slow down traffic and make it a friendly area for both drivers and pedestrians.
“The overpass, really all that did was address the at-grade railroad crossing north of the Burgess intersection and south of the Rosland intersection,” Misley said. “It dealt with the at-grade railroad crossing, but it didn’t deal with the Rosland intersection or any of the accesses north (of it). What the refinement plan is going to do is look at the entire area and how it can function cohesively as a transportation system.”
Ultimately, once the refinement plan is finished, the city can start looking for funding and begin the project phase.
The city is also amending its zoning code to include town homes. La Pine’s first zoning code was crafted in 2012, which makes it a relatively young document.
Misley said the amendment will help provide more housing options. Much of the city is made up of just single-family homes. He said there’s a shortage of multi-family housing within the city, and this amendment will hopefully help balance the choices between multi- and single-family homes.
“The goal with these amendments is to provide a diverse housing stock in La Pine (and provide) a range of opportunities for people to live,” Misley said. “A single-family home does not work well for everyone, and so having town homes provides that opportunity.”
Sunriver and La Pine Habitat for Humanity Vice President Wade Watson said town homes would help them keep the income qualification levels for their homes as low as possible.
“We can qualify more people for our low-income homes,” Watson said. “The combination of the cost of land and rising cost of construction of homes is causing us to reject more people than we would like to. So consequently, if we can build twice as many town homes on an acre than we can a single-family home, that will allow us to reduce the total cost and the mortgage and allow us to qualify more people.”
City councilors unanimously approved the amendment to the zoning code Wednesday evening.
