Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council approved changes to the city’s Comprehensive Plan and started reading ordinance proposals during its regular meeting on Aug. 26.
The new plan includes a number of changes, including the designation of several areas as medium-density residential, a new zone. Those areas include the avenues around Elm Street and the area around 18th and Tamarack streets.
It also creates new industrial designations and changes large tracts along the north side along the South Santiam River from industrial, open and a transition zone to a new recreation commercial zone. Dan Desler and Development by Design propose to develop a large resort project on the land and supported the proposed plan.
The plan was simplified to make it more user friendly, City Planner Carol Lewis said. That included the typeface of the plan along with overall simplification of the language in it. The detailed technical information used to support the new plan is kept in separate documents and appendices.
The council held a public hearing, receiving testimony from a representative of Desler and Development by Design. Tack Logging also asked that its business at the north end of Clark Mill be allowed as a conditional use in the new recreation commercial zone. The council agreed to include it as light industrial.
Among the changes are updated rules regarding protection of natural resources. A strip of protection for riparian areas will expand from 25 feet to 75 feet along the South Santiam and 50 feet along Ames and Wiley creeks.
The plan creates a new natural resource zone, which replaces the old development limitation zone.
The natural resource zone was applied to any property with a riparian area or “significant wetlands.” This includes much of the property north of Highway 20 along the South Santiam River, along with properties along Wiley and Ames Creek and large properties on the south side of the Ashbrook area.
When those properties are developed, the city is required to protect significant wetlands, based on a wetlands inventory completed a couple of years ago. Any development in the area right around them requires a wetlands delineation, a more detailed map of the edges of a wetland.
Such delineations have been done on the Desler property, which includes several hundred acres, Lewis said. The determinations in the wetlands inventory were accurate to within an acre on all those properties combined.
The city will not require a delineation if a proposed development is obviously not going to impact a significant wetland or riparian area, Lewis said. Property owners must deal with the Division of State Lands for fill permits for other wetlands areas, which are also identified by the inventory. The city will note the existence of the wetland, but the DSL is responsible for enforcing protections on those.
If a property allows no way to build because of a significant wetland, Lewis said, there is a variance process that can be used, assuming construction is even feasible. The state would still require fill permits and mitigation to build.
Property owners can also go through a process, which is more intensive than a delineation, to eliminate a designation as significant wetlands.
The council is in the process of reading four new chapters of ordinance. It will complete those readings by Sept. 23 and make a final decision.
For more information about the comprehensive plan or new ordinances, persons may call 367-8113.