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Bend won’t require sidewalks in Woodriver Village

KTVZ

The Bend City Council’s looking at not requiring sidewalks in one older Bend neighborhood, and instead having residents put money into a fund for a network of sidewalks, assisted by the city.

The Woodriver Village subdivision is unique, as it was approved back in 1972 by Deschutes County, long before it was annexed into the city in 1993.

After much public testimony and wrangling Wednesday night, city councilors began traveling down a path to bring more sidewalks to not just Woodriver Village, but other older, more rural neighborhoods — in a cohesive, planned fashion, not piecemeal and lot by lot.

Councilors agreed unanimously to not require sidewalks in that area of southwest Bend, but to instead move toward a payment in lieu of requiring sidewalks.

City Senior Planner Pauline Hardie said the payment in lieu program will reinvest money back into the neighborhood.

“So what would happen is when they come in for their new home building permit or their land division, instead of installing the sidewalks then, they would be required to pay a fee at time of building permit,” Hardie said.

That funding would then go into improving sidewalks within the subdivision.

The council also directed staff to develop criteria for other neighborhoods, and look at ways to help fund them with matching city funds.

There’s also an interest in focusing on the most-needed sidewalks citywide, but also to allow options such as multi-use paths, where that would make the most sense.

The city council also approved the next step in a major stormwater and sewer improvement project along Newport Avenue.

The city’s looking to move forward with a replacement project of stormwater piping on the key Westside thoroughfare.

The project is still in its early stages but would take place along Newport between College Way and Ninth Street.

Project Engineer Drew Wells said the plan is to replace some broken pipes, as well as some other underground infrastructure below the street. They also plan to repave Newport Avenue at the same time.

Wells said this is an important project for the city to invest in.

“In front of Newport Market, in fact, if you look at the project web page, there’s a pipe that failing right there at its joint, and its half caved in — and that’s not the only place that is failing or near failing,” Wells said. “And so if we don’t fix this now, it’s going to fail soon, and we are going to have flooding backups, could be some undermining of the road in some locations. So it’s got to be done, and it’s got to be done soon.”

The city council approved moving forward with hiring a contractor for the project Wednesday night.

Wells said construction is slated to begin in the spring of 2021.

He added its still too early to say how the project will impact traffic in the area when it does start — if the entire stretch of Newport will be closed at once or if it will be done in phases, saying the city will have to decide how to best minimize that impact.

There will be public meetings about this project coming up in spring of 2020.

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