The Bend Bulletin reports the Department of State Lands is considering the sale of a 382-acre parcel of vacant land in southeast Bend. The state has owned the land for twenty years and it was included in the city of Bend’s urban growth boundary when it expanded in 2016. Possible uses for the tract includes housing, commercial, industrial and public. A community meeting was recently held to help answer questions from neighbors.
Q. Why does this department have this land? And why hasn’t it been developed yet?
A. The Department of State Lands received this land in 1997 from the Bureau of Land Management. The charge of the State Lands Department is to use its land to generate money for the state’s education system. One way land can be more valuable is if it can be developed. So in 2007, the department created a master plan for the plot of land as a way to show how it would be suitable for development.
The idea was to be included in Bend’s bid for an urban growth boundary expansion, said Bill Ryan, the deputy director of the department. But the Department of Land Conservation and Development rejected the proposal, arguing that Bend was asking for more land than it needed at the time, Ryan said.
Almost a decade passed before Bend was able to expand its urban growth boundary in 2016 — and this time, 382 acres of the total 643 acres was included. That paved the way for someone to build a subdivision, public facilities and other commercial buildings.
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