Developers Push to Rezone Rural Land in Deschutes County Ahead of County Commission Change

Property owners are seeking to remove agricultural zoning protections from hundreds of acres of land in rural Deschutes County to allow for low-density or luxury housing in the next few months, before a new slate of county commissioners takes office.

Incoming candidates who will make up the future majority on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners earlier this year have already said they’ll be far less friendly to rezoning rural lands than the two outgoing commissioners, Tony DeBone and Patti Adair. The pair routinely outvotes a third commissioner, Phil Chang, in support of property owners seeking to change what’s allowed on their land.

“You can’t discount the fact that starting in 2027 there’s going to be a new board that’s going to be seated,” Deschutes County Community Development Director Peter Gutowsky told the board of commissioners at a meeting Sept. 16. “I’m not trying to speak for the applicants, but I think there’s a certain intent from the applicants that some of these plan amendment zone changes will be able to be heard in 2026.”

Deschutes County Administrator Nick Lelack acknowledged there are a “large number of items” coming to the board, including “land use applications of all types and sizes.”

To accommodate the workload, DeBone and Adair agreed they’d be willing to meet around Thanksgiving and between Christmas and New Year’s — which isn’t typical — and possibly hold land use hearings outside of the normal schedule.

“If there’s agenda items, it’s appropriate to meet,” DeBone said at a Sept. 30 meeting.

At the same meeting, Chang called the land use hearings a “joke” with a “predetermined” outcome.

“Anyone could predict what the vote is going to be,” he said. “It probably doesn’t matter if I’m here or not.”

Not all are requests from landowners or developers. There are housekeeping amendments to County code and a time-sensitive request from the City of Sisters to expand its urban growth boundary.

Two destination resort developers are also seeking plan tweaks, including the controversial 2,000-acre Thornburg Destination Resort west of Redmond.

And there are owners of six large properties totaling nearly 600 acres who want to go from the farm use zone to one that allows rural housing.

As Deschutes County grows, landowners and developers have become increasingly interested in converting farm-zoned land for rural residential uses. The practice has caught criticism from some local politicians, environmental groups and others who argue the rezones are driving up the price of farmland, while building homes too far outside of cities disrupts wildlife and scenic views, strains water supplies and puts people in the path of wildfire. But property owners argue their high desert properties can’t be farmed, and the redesignations would correct a decades-old zoning effort that put agricultural protections on acres of dry, rocky ground.

Deschutes County has about 240,000 acres of agriculturally zoned land. Gutowsky estimates the County has approved rezoning of about 2,000 acres of it. Many of those acres are properties near cities and are presumably being rezoned for future inclusion in urban growth boundary expansion, not low-density housing.

Opponents have mounted lengthy battles in court, arguing the practice is out of line with Oregon’s trademark land use planning system that directs growth inside of cities’ urban growth boundaries. But so far, the courts haven’t overturned any Deschutes County zoning decisions, so challengers are asking the state’s land use agency to weigh in.

Many of those challenges have come from Central Oregon LandWatch, an environmental watchdog group that keeps a close eye on the County’s land use proceedings.

LandWatch attorney Rory Isbell said he’s noticed a “big uptick” in land use applications, with some being “rushed” through the process.

One is a 135-acre property just north of U.S. Highway 20, about 8 miles southeast of Sisters. According to Deschutes County property records, it was purchased for $4.1 million in October 2025 by Cameron Curtis, the founder of Curtis Homes, a development company that’s built luxury homes in west Bend like Tetherow and Discovery West.

Curtis declined to be interviewed for this story.

The County’s rural residential zones allow an average density of one home per 10 acres.

Just down the road toward Sisters, a pair of other landowners are applying to rezone a combined 100 acres just south of Highway 20.

Curtis initially applied for a zone change in May. Before a hearings officer last month, Tia Lewis, an attorney representing the property, asked that the process not inadvertently drag on too long.

“All of the applicants with all of these applications currently pending are asking the County to get these before the board before the end of the year,” said Lewis, an attorney with Schwabe. “If we extend this period past the end of the year, this application will not make it to (the current) board, and Commissioner Chang has publicly stated it will be denied.”

Commissioners are required to follow county code and Oregon land use law when approving rezones. But county commissioners have “broad discretion” to interpret those laws differently, Chang said.

“I expect we will see that discretion being exercised in different ways after Commissioner DeBone and Commissioner Adair are off the board,” Chang told the Source.

For example, Chang said he expects the new board might find the argument more compelling that many high desert properties can, in fact, be used for agriculture.

Jamie Collins, who defeated DeBone in the May primary, told the Source he thinks the new board will give more consideration to water resources and wildlife habitat. At the same, he said he plans to give each application “full consideration on its merits in a fair and objective way.”

DeBone told the Source he reviews each application on its merits. Many rezone applications come to county commissioners with a recommendation to approve from a hearings officer.

But he also acknowledged the decision is somewhat subjective.

“We’ve got all kinds of discretion, it’s just, is it going to hold up in a review process after the fact,” DeBone said in an interview.

In October 2025, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld one of Deschutes County’s most controversial rezoning decisions to allow developers to rezone a 710-acre property between Sisters and Redmond for luxury housing. When the Oregon Supreme Court declined a petition to review the case, it ended a several-year battle over the swath of high desert.

For Isbell and LandWatch, the appeals court ruling doesn’t give credit to Deschutes County’s decision making, but rather, exposes a loophole in state land use law that its authors didn’t intend.

LandWatch and others have made that case to the Department of Land Conservation and Development. In June, members of the governor-appointed board overseeing the agency ruled there was enough evidence to give the case a full hearing. That hearing hasn’t been scheduled, said Alexis Hammer, policy manager with the agency.

Hammer was vague about what would happen if the agency does side with LandWatch.

“The commission has broad enforcement authority to ensure compliance with state law,” he said.