'An Expression of Community Values'

Deschutes County held its final public hearing on May 8 to hear comments regarding its draft 2024 comprehensive plan. The 111-page plan, which serves as the County’s map for the future, has garnered over 300 public comments since its inception. The County is set to review the plan’s comments and make a decision sometime in July or August.

The comprehensive plan provides goals, policies and actions that are intended to guide the day-to-day decisions of elected officials and staff. The plan addresses things like livability, rural developments, water, natural hazards, growth management and tourism.

The current plan was adopted in 2011 and since that time, the county has grown significantly.

According to a Deschutes County report, the County’s population grew from 157,730 residents to 198,254 from April 2010 to July 2020. About 208,000 people currently reside in the County.

The process began in April 2022 and was followed by community engagement to gauge what people wanted to see in the plan.

“In essence, it’s an expression of community values,” said Nicole Mardell, a Deschutes County senior planner.

The draft lists a number of goals and policies for a variety of topics. With water and wildlife, the plan aims to continue to protect habitat conservation and water availability while also keeping property owners in mind. The plan also outlines goals around preserving agricultural lands and uses and sees destination resorts as a “key economic development strategy for Deschutes County.”

A first draft of the comprehensive plan was released in August 2023, which then led to three public hearings between October and December 2023. After that, the planning commission voted to make some changes to the plan based on those comments. After those changes, there have been several more public hearings, the last occurring on May 8.

“It makes sense that we had so many hearings because this is kind of a good chance to get all these issues out and on the table, to best understand how we can find policies moving forward that a variety of community members agree upon.”

Central Oregon LandWatch, an organization that acts as an environmental watchdog and land use advocate, has been vocal about its concerns, calling the plan’s framework, “less-than-satisfactory.” The organization argues that the plan doesn’t adequately protect the region’s agricultural land, wildlife or water.

“The County has a major opportunity to help shape a more sustainable future in Central Oregon. Instead, their proposed plan update would maintain a status quo that’s simply unsustainable,” said Ben Gordon, the COLW executive director.

While there’s been a large mix of concerns, the topics that have come up most frequently, according to Mardell, include water, rezoning of farmland, destination resorts and wildlife protection.

“If you think about the topic of water, for instance, there’s a lot of agreement that we should do more about water,” said Mardell. “But when you get down to the policy level of what approach we take, that’s where community members often have different opinions.”

According to Lace Thornberg, COLW communications director, the organization believes there should be more responsible planning for water, with strong policies that tie water use to land use, and limit wells that would injure or impair existing wells or natural springs.

When it comes to farmland, the organization believes that all agricultural land zoned for farm use, including dry rangeland, should be preserved by ending “spot zoning” that allows for rural gentrification. COLW also thinks the plan should include policy requiring updates to all wildlife species’ habitat inventories that ensure protection and restoration of sensitive wildlife habitat.

After May 30, the last day that individuals can submit written comments to the record, the Board of County Commissions will review the entire hearing record, including comments submitted to the planning commissions. They will likely deliberate in June, according to Mardell, on whether or not they want to make additional changes to the document.

This article appears in Source Weekly May 16, 2024.