News

NEWS Progress at Juniper Ridge

The City’s approval of a public works campus at Juniper Ridge signals more opportunities for the property

By Jack Harvel

Courtesy of the City of Bend

The Les Schwab Tire Center headquarters sits on the edge of Juniper Ridge. It purchased the property from the City in 2006.

The 1,500-acre area of Juniper Ridge was sold to the City of Bend for $1 by Deschutes County in 1990, and has since been considered for a number of different purposes. The land was given under the pretense that it would be “employment land,” zoned commercial, industrial or mixed use. An ambitious master plan that included a four-year university, neighborhoods, a town center and industrial areas was scrapped during the Great Recession of 2008, and since then ideas for the land have come and gone. But, with sewer infrastructure built and plans to extend roads, the land can now accommodate some of the long-awaited projects.

On Wed., Oct. 6, the Bend City Council directed City staff to move forward to create a public works campus on 26 acres of Juniper Ridge. The campus will house the City’s utilities, engineering and transportation and mobility departments. Facilities manager Grant Burke said that current office space was tight and storage for machinery used by the utilities and transportation departments was lacking.

“Those two departments come with big things,” Burke said. “They come with big vehicles, heavy equipment, generators, and you’ve got to be able to find a place to store all that, and we’re really running out of space, not to mention fleet there.”

Residents have looked to Juniper Ridge as an opportunity for affordable housing and for unhoused services. Oregon land use laws require cities to zone enough employment and housing land in a 20-year plan. However, Bend’s growth is so explosive that housing can’t be built fast enough to ensure even remotely moderate housing costs.

“What the community started asking us is, why aren’t you using your city-owned land in Juniper Ridge for affordable housing?” Recovery Strategy and Impact Officer Carolyn Eagan said. “And so, in December 2020, the Council adopted the plans for the 500 acres of Juniper Ridge, the land that’s subdivided, and said we’re willing to look at the land that’s not already developed for housing.” The recent House Bill 2006 gave cities greater flexibility in creating both shelters and affordable housing, allowing them to forego land-use restrictions. “In the 2020 legislative session, the state legislature made it possible for any publicly owned land to be used for emergency shelters or deed-restricted affordable housing and basically said the state legislature does not care what the land use designation or the zoning is," Eagan said. "If it’s publicly owned, then that public agency, in this case the City, has the authority to develop it as some sort of emergency shelter or as affordable housing."

During the Oct. 6 meeting, City Manager Eric King said there will be more opportunities for these kinds of projects as the adjacent Cooley and Talus roads are extended, but the City is still in the process of exploring its authority over the land.

“Council is saying, ‘Is it even possible to use some of the city-owned land inside the city that’s designated for employment, but using our authority that the legislature gave us to do something other than build more offices, more factories, more research and development facility, so that we can better provide for all of our committee members who don’t have a roof over their heads?’” Eagan said.

Eagan said everything is on the table for potential projects, but that the process is slow-moving and it could take time before something materializes.

“The plan for this was to develop over the next 20 years as buildings, as offices, not necessarily as housing, so they’re just asking the question,” Eagan said. “They’re not asking the question, ‘Can this be used for x?’ They’re asking, ‘Can this be used not for employment lands?’”

Chris Miller

Noticias en Español Los Departamentos de Salud dan asesoramiento después de presentarse 16 sobredosis en menos de un mes

Por Jack Harvel / Traducido por Jéssica Sánchez-Millar

El Departamento de Salud del Condado de Crook reportó que han sucedido 15 sobredosis sin resultados fatales, desde el 15 de septiembre una con resultado mortal, en el tri condado del Centro de Oregon, incluidos los condados de Deschutes, Crook y Jefferson. El Grupo de Traba-

jo en Respuesta a las Crisis por Sobredosis (COOCRT por sus siglas en inglés) en el Centro de Oregon, dijo que las sobredosis implicaron el uso de heroína, metanfetaminas, pastillas falsificadas y otras sustancias que posiblemente contengan fentanilo, un opioide sintético que es 100 veces más fuerte que la morfina.

Los Departamentos de Salud del Centro de Oregon se están coordinando con los socorristas y con miembros comunitarios para tratar de prevenir más sobredosis y están actualizando

sus páginas web y redes sociales para aumentar la conciencia del alza en las sobredosis. COOCRT recomienda a los consumidores de drogas evitar el uso de pastillas no recetadas, ser cuidadosos al mezclar sustancias, portar Narcan, un atomizador nasal que puede revertir las sobredosis de opioides y utilizar las tiras para hacer la prueba de fentanilo en las sustancias recién adquiridas. Narcan es gratuita en la mayoría de las farmacias y las personas pueden adquirir las tiras gratuitas para hacer la prueba de fentanilo en el Departamento de Salud Pública del Condado Crook, en el Departamento de Salud Pública del Condado Deschutes y el en el Departamento de Salud Pública del Condado Jefferson.

Los Departamentos de Salud Pública del Centro de Oregon también recomiendan a las personas que usan drogas que llamen a la línea directa 800-484-3731 o a que visite la página web en NeverUseAlone.com que avisará a los servicios de emergencia si una persona pierde el conocimiento.

El Grupo de Trabajo en Respuesta a las Crisis por Sobredosis en el Centro de Oregon, dijo que las sobredosis implicaron el uso de heroína, metanfetaminas, pastillas falsificadas y otras sustancias que posiblemente contengan fentanilo, un opioide sintético que es 100 veces más fuerte que la morfina.

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Overdoses Spike

Health Departments give recommendations after 16 local overdoses in under a month

By Jack Harvel

The Crook County Health Department reported there have been 15 non-fatal overdoses—and one fatal— since Sept. 15 in the tri-county area of Central Oregon including Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties. The Central Oregon Overdose Crisis Response Taskforce said the overdoses involved heroin, methamphetamines, counterfeit pills and other substances likely to contain fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s 100 times stronger than morphine.

Central Oregon health departments are coordinating with first responders and community members to try to prevent additional overdoses and are updating their websites and social media to increase awareness of the upward trend. The task force recommends drug users avoid unprescribed pills, be cautious of mixing substances, carry Narcan—a nasal spray that can reverse opioid overdoses—and use fentanyl test strips on newly purchased substances. Narcan is free at most pharmacies and people can obtain fentanyl test strips for free at the Crook County Public Health Department, the Deschutes County Public Health Department and the Jefferson County Public Health Department.

Central Oregon public health departments also recommend people using drugs alone call a hotline at 800-4843731, or visit a website at NeverUseAlone. com, that will notify emergency services if the person becomes unresponsive.

Courtesy K-State Research and Extension/Flickr

Central Oregon Health Department’s provide fentanyl test strips and Narcan can be obtained at nearly any pharmacy for free.

Zoning In

Proposed zoning change could affect where the City can place shelters and managed camps

By Jack Harvel

Sounding Board to House Our Neighbors, a city-manager-appointed committee, recommended that Bend allow shelters in managed camps in all zoning designations except for heavy industrial.

In a press release on Monday, the committee laid out four shelter types, all currently zone restricted. They include group shelters where there’s shared sleeping areas, multi-room shelters with individual sleeping units, outdoor shelters like the proposed managed camp on Ninth Street and hardship shelters, which are RVs or mobile homes permitted for residential properties.

“Right now, for the outdoor shelter type, which is managed-camp or the tiny-home-type village with cabins, you could only have something like that in the commercial zone,” said Susanna Julber, senior project and policy manager with the City of Bend, who’s working with the committee. “We have different provisions for different shelter types city-wide, but they’re pretty restrictive.”

Currently all shelters need a conditional use permit, which requires an additional review before approval.

“The code amendment would make things a little bit easier if somebody wanted to build a shelter,” Julber said. “The City’s probably not going to be building a bunch of shelters because of this—the goal is to provide the legal framework, the regulatory framework, so if a social service provider, or other entity, maybe a private property owner... if they have a piece of land that's zoned mixed use or something, and they wanted to put a shelter there, they could.”

The Sounding Board started meeting in April to develop recommendations on the size and type of shelters that should be allowed in a zoning district. It’s comprised of social service providers, housing advocates, and designers and representatives from the Bend Economic Advisory Committee, Neighborhood Leadership Alliance, Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, Planning

Commission and the Bend City Council. Its recommendations to end the restrictive zoning of shelters everywhere except for industrial areas was primarily done out of safety concerns.

“That’s where manufacturing, flammable materials, things like that occur. So we didn’t want to have an existing heavy industrial facility have to build new firewalls or whatever they might have to do if a bunch of residents are living next door,” Julber said.

The committee also recommends all shelters and camps be: managed, include on-site parking, adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act, have toilets and trash receptacles, provide good-neighbor agreements for adjacent neighbors and residents and cannot be used for short-term rentals. Recommendations have been made but implementation will require revisions and acceptance by the planning commission. A survey will collect feedback from Bendites until Nov. 1.

“We’d really like the public to go ahead and fill that out and try and educate themselves on what the different shelter types are, and then give us meaningful feedback on those amendments through the survey,” Julber said. “Then we’ll get the sounding board back together in November, and review all the public feedback, and revise the code amendments as necessary.”

The planning commission is expected to review the changes in January. The changes will need to be approved by City Council before it can be adopted.

Nicole Vulcan The City’s not probably going to be building a bunch of shelters because of this, the goal is to provide the legal framework, the regulatory framework, so if a social service provider, or other entity, maybe a private property owner if they have a piece of land that zoned mixed use or something, and they wanted to put a shelter there they could. —Susan Jubler