​LAND USE TOPICS 

Developers and others that are required by the city of Bend to contact us may write to us at our email:  
centurywestneighborhood@gmail.com
​Developers wishing to hold a Public Meeting to discuss their project or plan a date for a meeting should reach out to our Chairperson, Lisa Mushel at 206-419-0281.  Ideally we would want to hold the meeting concurrently with a regularly scheduled board meeting, the 3rd Thursday of each month at 5:30PM.  

Update 2/3/2021 - Council has approved code changes recommended by the Neighborhood Leadership Alliance.  

The Neighborhood Leadership Alliance (NLA), a City Council advisory committee made up of representatives from the neighborhood associations, worked with City of Bend staff to identify and recommend potential amendments to the Bend Development Code (BDC) about public meeting notification and public comment processes for Type II and Type III development applications. The approved code changes are the result of nearly two years of neighborhood outreach by the NLA, encompassing hundreds of volunteer hours. Below is a summary of the original requested changes, and the "negotiated" changes we ultimately 

When an applicant seeks a Type II permit, the City notifies property owners within 250 feet of the application site by mail and opens a 14-day comment period for the public to provide input. The NLA recommended extending the public comment period to 16 days.  This change was not approved at this time.  Neighborhood Associations and the City of Bend are now coordinating notices through email. This should help give neighborhoods a bit more time for input.  the NLA will revisit this provision after 1 year of experience with receiving notices through email.

A Type III application is where the City Council, Planning Commission, or a Hearings Officer makes the final decision after a public hearing. The NLA recommended that the City increase notification areas from 250 feet to 500 feet for Type III hearings.  This was approved.

Some Type II and Type III development applications require a developer to hold a neighborhood public meeting before submitting an application to the City. The NLA recommended increasing the notification period for these meetings from 14 to 21 days. After discussions with developers, the NLA was pressured to remove this request because developers said the time delay was too costly for their business operations.  Again, with email notification, the neighborhoods should have a little extra time in which to notify and prepare for these meetings.  Further, the NLA will be conducting a significant education effort for the community around land use and how the public can participate in the process.

For both Type II and Type III development applications, the NLA has recommended that notification signs posted on the site remain posted throughout the duration of the public comment period and be legible from the “public way,” such as the street. This was essentially approved - the modification is that the sign will be placed within 10 feet of the right of way.

These code changes resulted from hundreds of hours from many volunteers, in particular the volunteers who served on the Land use Working Group for the Neighborhood Leadership Alliance. It serves as an example of how changes to benefit the public can be made, albeit a painstakingly slow process.  We hope the changes will result in more people having better information about projects in our neighborhoods.
Land Use - Update on Pine Ridge Inn
​Approximately 30 people attended the public meeting to learn more about the proposed re-development of the Pine Ridge in and adjacent parcels.  CWNA submitted this letter to the City of Bend summarizing the primary questions related to the project.  The project has not yet been approved, so the official public comment period has not begun (where citizens can comment on the record). 

Here is the current status of the project:
 
1. Applicant completed a “pre-application” process where the applicants meets with city staff to identify potential issues with the concept the applicant wishes to pursue.
2. Applicant opened a site plan file (PZ-20-0263) and a separate file (PZ-20-695) for “variances”.
3. Applicant completed the required neighborhood meeting.
4. Engineering department is review the submitted Transportation Facilities Report (TFR) and Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA).  Both documents are posted in PZ-20-0263.
5. Applicant is working on preparing submittals to “complete” the site plan application.  Those submittals may include responding to comments the public made in the neighborhood meeting (the code doesn’t require the applicant to make a response.  The city planner can only suggest the applicant do so.)  The city planner makes the determination when the application is deemed complete and it must include the engineering department approving the TFR and TIA.
 
Once the planner deems the application is complete, a notice of a two week comment period is sent out by the city planner to all within a radius of the project.  That notice has not been issued yet.  Sometimes it takes a while for the application to be deemed complete.  

If you have questions, please email us at centurywestneighborhood@gmail.com. We are coordinating with neighboring NA's and plan to issue additional comments around traffic and the requested variances during the comment period.

Update: As of 9/15/2020, this project is still not approved. The developer did submit a 2nd Burden of Proof statement, and we are waiting to learn more in terms of city response.
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Land Use Notices - Access to City of Bend web site

You can access Land Use development plans on the City of Bend website here.
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Do you want to make a comment on a land use topic?  Here's a sample template and guidelines for your communication.  Click here.

CWNA does not currently have a dedicated Land Use Chair person. This page will be further updated once we have a volunteer in place to assist in keeping information current.