A proposed housing project near the Bend Park & Recreation Pavilion has neighbors in Bend’s River West neighborhood concerned about parking and congestion—especially in the summer when the Les Schwab Amphitheater concerts pack the area with extra cars.
This Thursday, March 1, representatives of the Seattle-based Evergreen Housing Development Group are hosting a meeting for public input on the proposed 170 to 180-unit building that would house apartments, managerial office space and resident amenities, like a gym. The proposed location is the intersection of SW Shevlin Hixon Dr. and SW Bradbury Way. It would border Colorado Ave. and the Pavilion.
Linda May and Tracy Wright, both homeowners in River West, oppose the apartment building on the grounds of added cars on the roads and public safety. In a phone call with the Source, both said they believe the added residents would put more than 300 cars on the road, but the development company is only planning for 155 parking spaces. They both said while they understand Bend is growing—and people need places to live—cramming a few hundred people—in addition to the proposed apartment building at the old Ray’s Food Place—is too many, too soon. They would like to see a multi-use building, with shops, restaurants and some multi-family living spaces.
Evergreen is the same company that’s running the Outlook at Pilot Butte project on the eastside.
The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 to 6:30 pm in the Pavilion’s Party Room at 1001 SW Bradbury Way.
This article appears in Feb 21-28, 2018.
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Is the property zoned for apartments? Yes! Was the property for sale and available for ANYONE to purchase for $4.9M? Yes! Will the developer have to meet the requirements for ingress/egress, density, height restrictions, parking, and infrastructure improvements due any impact on the surrounding area? Yes!
Why then, is this developer being harassed by a few NIMBY residents who do not understand zoning, market conditions and the economics and housing demand of a growing city? Maybe these neighboring residents fail to understand private property rights? This is not public property, and the developer must meet code and zoning requirements already in place on this vacant dirt. Unfortunately, appeasing the vocal minority is not one of the city’s requirements to build a large project. My money is on the developer who plunked down $5M on raw land, not a few emotional neighbors. If the neighbors prefer to control someone else’s investment, then they should have bought this land themselves. Oh, can’t afford it? Then sit down and mind your own business.
Who am I? While I do not have a horse in this race, call me a concerned citizen who supports the rights of PRIVATE PROPERTY… both mine and yours.
It’s the very essence of NIMBY – “ok, we need that… but not here, not like that”.
I have no horse in this race either, so could care less what happens with this development or the one by the old Ray’s Market. However it would be nice to have both of these developments be architecturally pleasing. Too many apartments are boring urban boxes. I don’t think the photo in the article is the actual planned development, it looks like an existing complex somewhere else. To the developers: please put some thought into your designs.