Once upon a time a developer had a bright idea. “Let’s build a high-end, gated golf community out among the junipers and jackrabbits in the high desert,” he said.
“How can we do that?” his partner asked dubiously. “Oregon’s land use laws won’t let us put almost 400 homes way outside of any urban area.”
“No problem,” the first partner replied. “We’ll call it a ‘destination resort.'”
“But won’t we have to build hotels and rental condos for the tourists to stay in?” his partner asked.
“Don’t sweat it,” the first guy reassured him. “The county won’t
enforce the law. And even if they wanted to, the law doesn’t have any
teeth.”
“Brilliant!” the other guy said. “What should we name it?”
“How about ‘Pronghorn’?” the first guy said.
The preceding dialogue is (as far as we know) fictional. But Pronghorn’s continued flouting of the state and county’s destination resort rules – with the Deschutes County Commission as its accomplice – is not.
State and county law says a destination resort must have at least half as many overnight units as it has permanent residences. At build-out Pronghorn will have 384 homes, which means the law requires 192 lodging units.
The Pronghorn master plan approved six years ago talked about building a 75- to 100-room luxury hotel and required the “resort” to have 150 overnight lodging units by the end of 2007. Ground has yet to be broken on the hotel, and the only overnight accommodations now available are 48 condo units.
Last week the Pronghorn developers – for the third time – asked the county commissioners for more time to comply with the law. The commissioners complied, giving them another five years to hit the target. Commissioners Tammy Melton and Dennis Luke went along reluctantly, but Mike Daly went along eagerly – in fact, he didn’t want to set any deadline. “I think what we’re doing is allowing the developer of a very beautiful development to have a little breathing room,” he said.
Sorry, Mike, but beauty is not an excuse for ignoring the law.
In fairness to the commissioners, state law doesn’t give them much of a “hammer” (as Luke put it) to use against Pronghorn. The developers put up a bond to insure completion of the hotel and the county could take it and build the hotel itself, but the county doesn’t want to get into the hotel business.
The law needs to be changed to give counties a bigger hammer. But for now the existing law is what the county has to work with, and small though the hammer is, it should be ready to use it. If it doesn’t, state and county land use regulations will become a bad joke.
From their performance so far, we strongly suspect the Pronghorn developers will be back in five years asking for yet another delay. We hope the commissioners – whoever they may be by then – will have the guts to turn them down. Meanwhile, for caving in this time the present commissioners get THE BOOT.
This article appears in May 1-7, 2008.
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I agree that they should be held to their original agreement but my question is “How many property tax dollars does the county collect from Pronghorn property owners vs. barren ground”??
So, lets see if I have this straight now…..”tax dollars” = money…………GOOD…..”barren” land….
…BAD. Thanks for clearing that up for us Jed.The law be damned.
I think the Source should look at its advertisers and see who is harmed by Destination Resorts? Seems to me that the majority of the businesses in Central Oregon survive on the people who buy there and visit the region. If the economy slows….. as it surely has, why would we not want to give a break to those that provide many jobs and are the biggest tax payers? Seems to me that the Commissioner’s who voted for this should be complimented for GOOD SOUND business judgment!! But that the view of a business person, not a liberal left wing newspaper!!!!
I don’t think the issue is whether you are right wing or left wing, it’s whether you believe this is a temporary extension or the realization of a business plan. Right now Pronghorn isn’t a Destination Resort – it’s a sagebrush subdivision. A Destination Resort has accommodations for visitors hence the community disappointment. Everyone is getting hurt because they aren’t bringing in the tourist dollars that they were expected to. And, to add to the disappointment, this is the third extension. Ouch.
Deschutes County has far more “destination resorts” than any other county in Oregon. Yet wages in Deschutes County are consistently below the state average. If “destination resorts” are such a mighty engine of prosperity, how can this be true? Maybe one of the “resort” champions can explain it.
It’s instructive to visit Pronghorn’s website, pronghornclub.com. There’s not one word about coming there for a weekend or vacation and no information about how to make a reservation; everything’s about the golf, the homes, the members-only clubhouse and “the lifestyle.”
Truth is, people who buy homes in places like Pronghorn for upwards of a million bucks DON’T WANT tourists coming there; they don’t want the hoi polloi messing up their private “paradise.”
Destination Resorts are just a loophole in the law to build a subdivision outside the UGB. They are off the hook to build any offsite infrastructure.
How about they let homeless people sleep in the garages of the houses until the hotel is built?
You are right about their web site but I received some advertising for overnight stays at Pronghorn. Visiting friends in Bend now because their materials made it look pretty attractive.
They are pushing a golf academy stay with some high end units — I think 1-2 bedrooms.
They are probably targeting specific markets i.e golfers from out of town rather than advertising locally.
Native Son, I did not say the law be damned!!! Tax dollars must be good or you liberals would not be sucking up and crying for all the tax dollars possible.
Re: “The developers put up a bond to insure completion of the hotel and the county could take it and build the hotel itself…”
Real county commissioners (not the pansy&petunia rollover models we’re forced to endure) would have enforced the bond, collected the money and built middle-brow rental units at Pronghorn. Or rather, they would have threatened that action via the County Attorney and forced some proper thinking about complying with existing law on the obviously haughty and naughty scofflaws who own the Pronghorn commons. Losing their bond money, and facing the development of rental units that us “leave the light on” Motel Six types could enjoy would surely get the fat-cats to see the error of their arrogant ways in about a New York nanosecond. I can just about hear ’em screamin’ “…there goes the neighborhood!”
Important Correction: We were wrong in saying Tammy Belton supported the extension for Pronghorn. It was a 2-1 vote with her voting against it and Luke and Daly voting for it. Our apologies, Tammy.
“Real county commissioners (not the pansy&petunia rollover models we’re forced to endure) would have enforced the bond, collected the money and built middle-brow rental units at Pronghorn.”
LOL! Damn, wouldn’t THAT have given the developers and the snooty-tooty Pronghorn homeowners a hissy fit!
Did anybody read the piece about destination resorts in today’s Bulletin? Mike Daly defends them because they bring in “clean” tourist dollars. But the whole point is that places like Pronghorn are NOT bringing in tourist dollars — or at least not as much as they would if they really were RESORTS instead of upscale subdivisions in disguise.
Liberal or not , tax dollars or not, the law/code requires the over night units so they need to be built, end of story!
I believe the original name for the development was Huntington Ranch or something similar, but during the environmental review for their road, the developers learned that a concern was a herd of Pronghorn in the area and thus, they renamed it “Pronghorn Resort”. Often large developments are named for the things they help displace.