Miller’s Landing Public Hearing

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

PROJECT NUMBER: PZ-11-0163

Monday, July 9, 2012 at 5:30 pm
City of Bend Council Chambers
710 NW Wall Street, Bend, OR 97701

APPLICANT: Bend Park & Recreation District

LOCATION: 55 NW Riverside Boulevard; Identified on Deschutes County Assessofs Map 17-12-32CC as Tax Lots 17900 & 18800.

REQUEST: Site Plan, Conditional Use Permit, and Waterway Overlay Zone (WOZ) application for Mii|er’s Landing, a new community park located on approximately 3.71 acres in the Residential Urban Medium Density (RM) zone. Proposed park amenities include: picnic shelters, walkways, river access, parking, restroom, community gardens, landscaping, and improvements to the adjacent street and alley.

STAFF REVIEWER: Aaron Henson, AICP, Senior Planner; 541-383-4885;  ahenson@ci.bend.or.us

All persons interested in this issue are invited to attend the public hearing or to mail written comments to the City of Bend Planning Division, 710 NW Wall Street, Bend, Oregon 97701. Comments must be directed toward the ordinance criteria that apply to this request. Those criteria are listed below. Please refer to the project number in your written comments. Written comments may be submitted at anytime prior to the hearing. The opportunity to provide oral testimony at the meeting will be at the discretion ofthe Planning Commission.

A copy of the application, all documents and evidence submitted by or on behalf of the applicant, and the applicable criteria are available for inspection at no cost and will be provided at a reasonable cost. A copy of the application and all documents and evidence relied upon by the applicant can also be viewed by logging into the ePlans website at https://eplans.ci.bend.or.us/ProjectDox/ with username “publicviewer@ci.bend.or.us” and password “public”, then searching for PZ-12-0163. A copy of the Staff Report will be available for inspection at no cost at least 7 days prior to the hearing and will be provided at a reasonable cost.

Mel Oberst
Community Development Director

APPLICABLE CRITERIA, STANDARDS & PROCEDURES:

(1) Bend Code Chapter 10-10; City of Bend Development Code

(a) Chapter 2.1; Residential Districts
(b) Chapter 2.7; Special Planned Districts
(c) Chapter 3.1; Access, Circulation and Lot Design
(d) Chapter 3.2; Landscaping, Street Trees, Fences & Walls
(e) Chapter 3.3; Vehicle Parking, Loading & Bicycle Parking
(f) Chapter 3.4; Public Improvement Standards
(g) Chapter 3.5; Other Design Standards

The applicable criteria are available for review at the City of Bend Community Development Department, City Hall, 710 NW Wall Street, Bend, Oregon. The
applicable criteria are also available on the City web site.

Miller’s Landing meeting January 31

An open house to discuss the Miller’s Landing Park will take place January 31 in the community room of the Bend Parks & Recreation District Office.

The event will take place from 5:30 pm to 7 pm, and is the third open house to discuss the park project. The district is developing the park’s master plan and is seeking public input.

Park district staff presented a summary of the questionnaire results and public meeting input at a September board meeting. The district staff then created three park concepts that incorporated public comments, board input, and site conditions.

These concepts were presented at a second open house meeting on October 13th.  The drawings are available here:

For more information, visit Miller’s Landing.

New concepts for Miller’s Landing

Dozens of Bend residents turned out at an open house Thursday, taking an opportunity to weigh in on plans for the city’s next riverfront park.

The Bend Park & Recreation District is on an aggressive schedule to begin construction on the park at Miller’s Landing, across the Deschutes River from McKay Park, by next spring or summer.

Thursday, the district invited the public to view three concept drawings of what the nearly five-acre park could include and to offer their feedback.

Robin Laughlin, project manager for the district, said the public has expressed a preference for a lower-intensity park than McKay Park, the grassy expanse just downstream from the Colorado Avenue spillway popular with summer river floaters. All three plans call for much more limited river access than at McKay Park, with native plants covering the majority of the area along the water’s edge.

Laughlin said three concepts — plans A, B and C — reflect diminishing degrees of development. While plan A features community gardens, a picnic shelter and three river access points, including an off-leash dog beach, plan C has only two small river access points and is dominated by native plants and grassy areas.

All three concepts include public restrooms, the feature most requested by participants at prior public input sessions.

No plans for skatepark

Despite extensive lobbying by skateboarders earlier this year, none of the concepts include a skate park. Bruce Ronning, the district’s director of planning and development, said the district is actively looking for a place to locate a new skate park on the west side, but doesn’t believe it would be a good use of limited riverfront park space.

Laughlin said the district is likely to mix and match different elements from all three concepts in developing its official master plan this winter.

Two design elements captured much of the attention from participants in the open house, who left their comments on sticky notes tacked up next to images of the three concepts: the off-leash beach included in Plan A, and parking in the alley behind Gilchrist Avenue, included in plans A and C.

Both plans were unpopular.

Bob Almquist, who lives on Gilchrist Avenue, said while he has no problem with dogs, they don’t mix well with the park’s focus on boating and floating. A frequent kayaker, Almquist said he’s vulnerable to being tipped over by swimming dogs when he’s in his boat. Off-leash dogs are unlikely to remain on the designated beach, he said, and are likely to cut through the proposed stands of native plants, damaging the plants and creating erosion of the banks.

Almquist said he’s mixed on parking along the Gilchrist Avenue alley. While a parking lot off the alley could slow traffic, he said, it could also create conflicts with the walkers and cyclists who use the alley.

Dagmar Eriksson, who lives on the bluff overlooking the park site, said she leans toward plan B as the best way to both provide river access and preserve riparian areas. She said she often sees boaters who launch or land from the site damaging the banks by pulling their boats through the bushes along the banks, and would like to see designated launch sites at the future park.

Eriksson said she thinks an off-leash area would create conflicts with other users of the park. Across the river at McKay Park, too many dog owners already let their dogs run free and fail to pick up their waste, she said.

One participant left a note suggesting the development of an off-leash beach doesn’t go far enough.

“This should be a dog sanctuary,” the note read. “The anti-dog people are giving Bend a bad name.”

Eriksson and Almquist both said they expect the park district will do a good job, and that any park is a more welcome addition to the neighborhood than the residential development that had been proposed for the site just a few years ago.

In 2006, Brooks Resources and the Miller Lumber family were given approval to build 37 townhomes on the site. Economic conditions stalled the project, and late last year, the Trust for Public Lands purchased the property in order to transfer it to the park district.

“This is just frosting on the cake, the fact this is a park and not condominiums,” Almquist said.

The park district is continuing to accept public input on the Miller’s Landing project.

Source: The Bulletin