According to The Bend Bulletin, the county commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon are trying to untangle an attempt to rezone farm and forestland for residential use after a state Land Use Board of Appeals decision in Douglas County threw some specifics of the proposal into question. The land in question has limited capacity for farming or timber which is pitting land owners against environmentalists.
Douglas County is reconsidering a proposal to rezone 22,500 acres of forest- and farmland, which the board of appeals said did not go far enough to assess wildfire risk or address possible wastewater issues. Douglas County did not do enough to coordinate with other cities to see what kind of pressure additional housing would add to roads, sewers and other infrastructure.
So last week, in an unusual move, the Deschutes County planning department asked the commission to consider whether its proposal was worth pursuing.“We are rarely in this position where we are wanting to get in front of the board on a significant policy issue,” county Planning Manager Peter Gutowsky said.
Because of fears that the Deschutes County proposal could not survive an appeal based on the Douglas County case, commissioners begrudgingly tabled the program this week and decided to ask the Department of Land Conservation and Development to make statewide rules for them.
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