Suterra Progress Pics

Suterra was given an entry and grading permit before the sale was finalized. Knife River has had a crew out working for several weeks, so I went out to take a few pics over the weekend.

The pad looks finished:





Knife River heavy equipment all lined up and looking ready to load up:



Suterra hopes to start the foundation as soon as the zoning change being voted on Wednesday night is in force, perhaps as soon as Nov. 12. The city is responsible for running roads, sewer and water, at a projected cost of $3.5M.

My next post will go over some details of financing Juniper Ridge development and compare that to the cost to the General Fund, and how it affects the rest of the citizens of Bend.

Juniper Ridge Management Board Report

The Juniper Ridge Management Board met last Wednesday for about the seventh time, under the rather forceful guidance of Chair John James. City staff attending included John Russell and Jerry Mitchell, Mel Oberst, Sonia Andrews, Eric King, and several others. There was also an ODOT presence. The JRMB is aggressively moving forward with financial and physical planning to be ready if and when the ODOT/Cooley/97 issue is resolved. This issue, which will require $50M in identified revenues to overcome, is critical to any future land sales. This large amount of required monies is definitely on the radar of the JRMB.

One of the sources of this $50M will be the trip fees paid by users ranging from Suterra to Super Walmart. It is anticipated that their will be 2900 trips available, with a per trip cost of $9000. The City of Bend will pay $3000 of this fee. The total available from these fees is about $26M, a little over one-half of the required $50M. That means Bend taxpayers will be paying another $8.7M towards Juniper Ridge buildout in "helping out" the companies that want to build around Cooley/97. That includes Super Walmart.

This "co-pay" was first discussed in an Executive Session which was broadcast into the hallway by mistake, which I happened to overhear. That is illegal, and is definitely an issue going forward. As is calling in Suterra to an Executive Session to discuss their financing capabilities before the no public discussion, no public comment council vote on the sale of city land to Suterra.

This abuse of Executive Sessions simply must be confronted and stopped before the installation of the next City Council.

The city anticipates that the other $24M will come from land sales at JR and from bonds supported by the JR redevelopment district. However so far land sales have resulted in multi-million dollar losses due to the cost of infrastructure improvements agreed to by the city.

The next steps to developing JR including such mundane but detail specific items as overlaying streets, working with Pacific Power on a substation, and working with yet more consultants on design standards and CC&R's. The JRMB anticipates meeting at least twice a month through the end of the year to move these items along.

Also high on the agenda are two upcoming meetings with the Oregon Transportation Commission. For the first meeting on Nov. 13th the city plans to present a general overview of its plans to improve surface streets in the vicinity so less traffic will be pushed to Cooley/97. The second meeting in January will flesh this proposal out by identifying specific funding sources to actually build these streets. These meetings will be preceded by a North End stakeholders meeting on Nov. 6th, showing maps of the planned surface street and other improvements.

The next JRMB meeting is Nov. 10th. It is an open public meeting, and while not explicitly encouraged, the public is officially welcome. Meeting details are way down on the right side of this city web site: http://www.ci.bend.or.us/depts/urban_renewal_economic_development/index.html

UPDATE: Suterra Sale--Site Pics, Cali Spraying Controversy

First, a link to the actual sale agreement in a searchable PDF:

Suterra Sale and Purchase Agreement

Went out to the worksite earlier today and I am amazed at how far along Suterra is on site preparation. There were approximately 20 pieces of heavy equipment breaking rock and moving rock and dirt. If you go out to the new Les Schwab building at the east of Cooley and turn north at the double roundabout, the Suterra site is about 800 yards north. Here are a couple pics:

There was so much going on I didn't want to get too close. I'll try again this weekend.

According to the Sale Agreement, Suterra has had site access since Oct. 4th in anticipation of an agreement. They want to be in the facility next summer-fall from what I've read.

On another Suterra note, Buster has flipped into full research mode on Suterra spraying their Checkmate products from the air in the Bay Area. The stated purpose is to control the Light Brown Apple Moth. There is far more controversy than anyone knows about, including lawsuits, injunctions, city resolutions, state and federal intervention, secret hazardous ingredients, sealing of court records, etc. See the comments at BB2's last post for a whole lot more. It's rather disturbing.

There are plenty of very unhappy folks in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas over this matter. They've even set up several dedicated websites:
http://www.lbamspray.com/
http://www.stopthespray.org/

For more info here is a Google search for "lbam spray".

I really hope Suterra is a good neighbor to us here in Bend. This kind of stuff is where public process really needs to be proactive. I will further such efforts after the election, so as not to inadvertently help even more pro-development candidates get elected. Candidates like Tom Greene, Don Leonard. Kathie Eckman, and Jeff Eager.

If you have had it up to here with the Council, please consider writing me--Bruce Ewert--in for Position 3. I know I'll get at least one vote :) And I will be in a position to be even more proactive about ending the abuse of Executive Sessions.

There was a ton of activity around the Les Schwab building as well, including a couple of moving trucks that look to be bringing in office equipment. They look really close to moving in. I'll try to get pics soon, without all the trucks and other equipment.

Juniper Ridge is moving forward fast. Here's to keeping it much more public and making sure it doesn't bankrupt the City.

Secrecy Surrounds Suterra Land Sale

The City of Bend has entered into a Sale and Purchase Agreement with Suterra for land at Juniper Ridge. According to earlier media reports, this purchase is for eight acres at $7 a square foot, a purchase price of $2,439,360. Juniper Ridge Partners will received a fee of 6% on this transaction initiated by Suterra, about $146,000, for some kind of ill defined services that have no documentation. The cost to the city to prepare the site is estimated to be $3.5 million, which will also serve future tenants of Juniper Ridge when the City/ODOT logjam over traffic on Highway 97 is solved. City Manager Eric King estimates this will happen in the spring of 2009.

Only four of the seven Councilors actually made it to the special Joint Session of the Bend Urban Renewal Agency and the City Council (BURA is the City Council), with Councilor Friedman attending via conference call. Councilors Abernethy and Clinton were not in attendance.

Once again a disheartening level of secrecy surrounded a transaction at Juniper Ridge. The meeting was called to order by Councilor Telfer and immediately recessed into Executive Session "to discuss real estate issues" for almost an hour. Suterra executives and EDCO director Roger Lee left he executive session early, and then the Suterra execs were summoned back into the Executive Session again by Economic Development Director John Russell. When the execs came back out 15 minutes later, they were complaining to each other about being questioned so strongly on the subject of being able to finance their project.

The Purchase and Sale Agreement was not available to the public before, during and after the vote on the agreement, and there was no public hearing held before the vote on the agreement, which passed 5-0 on the condition that Suterra provides adequate proof of financing capability to the City. There were public hearings held on the two topics regarding financing issues, specifically to allow the entire purchase price plus another $200,000 from the General Fund to be transferred to the BURA Juniper Ridge Construction Budget to build out the area. The City will also not pay itself over a million dollars in SDC's related to the Les Schwab purchase until some future date, will maintain it's $6 million line of credit until some future date, and will continue paying the $120,000 per year in interest on the line of credit.

No public comments were made. The meeting was not held at the normal time of Council meetings, but rather at 4 PM on the fourth Wednesday of the month, and virtually no public was in attendance. The three votes and all council discussion took about 20 minutes. Most questioning was by Councilor Telfer regarding taking monies from the General Fund for this project. Telfer was the only Councilor to vote no on any of the three issues. Finance Director Sonia Andrews stated that the City could increase it's line of credit by $200,000, but that it was easier to take it out of the General Fund. None of the other Councilor's seemed to take issue with this, although we all remember several hours of discussion over using $70,000 to fund the transit system.

I was told by City Attorney Pete Schannauer that there was no requirement for a public hearing on this public land sale, and that for unspecified reasons the agreement was not made available to the public prior to the special Joint Session. ORS 221.725 states that "...when a city council considers it necessary or convenient to sell real property or any interest therein, the city council shall publish a notice of the proposed sale in a newspaper of general circulation in the city, and shall hold a public hearing concerning the sale prior to the sale." Pete and Economic Development Assistant Director Jerry Mitchell assured me that I could receive a copy of agreement the next day, today. I will update this post with a link to the agreement if and when I receive it.

Suterra seems to be an excellent tenant for Juniper Ridge. According to Suterra President Steve Hartmeier the average salary is $90,000. Five to ten new jobs will be created per year, in addition to the 50 or so employees that will move from the current Suterra facility in the Columbia/Simpson area, which has almost 200,000 square feet of space empty and available already. Suterra creates pheromone-based insect control products. Suterra claims a high level of safety, although there have been reports of extensive safety issues with aerial applications in California.

This reporter has no issue with the tenant but does take issue with the process. Secrecy and extensive Executive Sessions have no place in the public process, and in fact are tightly regulated to certain issues that the City of Bend has far exceeded. This is an issue that will be further examined in the near future, as I firmly believe that the next City Council needs to become much more open, especially as the Highway 97 issue is cleared up and further lands are sold in Juniper Ridge. Also the continued significant payments to Juniper Ridge Partners for completely undocumented "services" is very troubling.

City Strategy At Odds With ODOT Plans

Last week there was an Oregon Transportation Committee meeting at Eagle Crest, with it's main focus on the Hwy 97 realignment. The city gave a long presentation of traffic studies and other data supporting its desire for a Cooley/97 interchange to allow further development at Juniper Ridge in the very near future.

To my surprise, the OTC has already, back in March, decided that they did not want any direct connection to Hwy 97 from Cooley Road. Their guidance document from March, 2008 states:

IV. Cooley Road - Preference is to include an overpass at Cooley Road and US 97, with no direct access to US 97.

This came as a complete and utter surprise to me. After all, we went through a several months-long process last year going over various scenarios for improving traffic flow at the Cooley/97 intersection. An idea that has been shelved, it seems.

In reality, the city's plans for Juniper Ridge are seen as a detriment to traffic flow on 97, and the OTC and ODOT have continued to press for surface solutions for Juniper Ridge and other local traffic in the area. Local roads for local traffic.

Simply put, the OTC and ODOT do not want Bend's proclivity for allowing development to exceed traffic flow capabilities, such as with the ProTerra development on the Mt. Bachelor bus parking lot, to cause their main north-south conduit east of the Cascades to fail.

I contacted the OTC to clarify this stance, and received this email from "ODOT Bob":

Bruce - I was asked to respond to your request. I've attached the slide from the presentation last week that references guidance that we received from the Transportation Commission during a presentation in February 2007. We have developed the alternatives for the US 97: North Corridor project consistent with this guidance, and we did not hear anything from the discussion last week that would cause us to change direction.

In fact, the traffic analysis accomplished as part of the project bears out the merits of the guidance at least as it pertains to the connection at Cooley Road. Any direct connection from US 97 at Cooley Road that would serve future development in Juniper Ridge causes the Parkway through Bend to fail. The traffic model shows that trips from throughout the community would use the Parkway as opposed to alternative local routes if their destination is Juniper Ridge. This additional local traffic volume would exceed the capacity.

Bob Bryant
Region Manager
ODOT Region 4

The emphasis is mine.

To my simple mind, it seems that the city is pushing ahead with plans that are at loggerheads with those who actually control the state's highways. And that is a no-win situation.

The Chair of the OTC stated that she supported funding of local arterials to take the pressure off of state highways. The idea being that state highways need free and clear flow, and local traffic is local traffic. Perhaps our city staff and council should explore this idea. Explore how to build a local traffic system that intersects with the state system on their terms. One that supports the local businesses and provides alternatives to the parkway.

One that might actually win support and funding from the state.

It might be an even better idea to try to really work with those who control highways 97 and 20, rather than continuing to push a homegrown solution against ever more fierce resistance.

Analysis of Juniper Ridge Tilt Towards Residential Uses

I've put together a table that shows how planned land uses at Juniper Ridge tilted heavily towards residential, and have pretty much stayed that way even though Allan Bruckner was quoted in the Bulletin as being happier that more land was to be used for employment purposes. The numbers denote acres:

Plan Developer	OTAK	JRP	C-R
R&D/LI	643	350	350-400
Office/Commercial	46	50	75-150
Residential	154	510	500-600
Mixed Use	75	75	75-150
University	154	200	175-235
Parks/OS	183	175	150-175
Roads/Facilities	245	140	125-150

Note that the R&D/Light Industrial land use of 350-400 acres in the C-R plan that was approved includes 100 acres for 10+ acre parcels. That's it. Les Schwab already has 12, with an option for 8 more. Suterra has formally requested 10 acres. Pepsi has informally requested 10 acres. At this rate large parcels will be gone in a year or two, unless the City ignores the master plan and continues to sell large plots.

This is exactly what the City seems to be doing in the case of the Suterra request. My next post will cover that-a 10 acre parcel adjacent to Les Schwab, either north or west. This overlays planned parcels of 2-4 acres. And I have questions about how the City is moving forward with this sale despite JRP's exclusive three-year option on the 50 acres surrounding the Les Schwab property. Are we setting ourselves up for another lawsuit?

To say nothing about the emergence of a possible new sales deal with JRP, which may or may not be discussed at tomorrow's City Council work session. While, at least publically--I suspect it will be discussed in Executive Session.

Just as a $3000 per trip Bend-taxpayer-funded "incentive" to help defray the $9000 per trip cost of temporarily fixing Cooley Rd was discussed in the last Executive Session, and is revealed in the letter to Suterra from Econ Dev Director John Russell. That is if ODOT can be bent over and twisted into agreeing with the City's plan to increase congestion at Cooley/97 just like they plan to do around Simpson and Columbia for Proterra's development of the Mt. Bachelor Bus Parking area, according to the BULL:

Bend roads compromise may pave way for similar agreements

A compromise agreement between the city of Bend and a developer over road improvements in southwest Bend could set an example for other areas of the city...

Proterra’s plans for a mixed-use project with condominiums, offices and retail space were shot down by a city hearings officer earlier this year because of the amount of traffic the project would add to nearby roads...

City officials agreed that at that latter two intersections, they would tolerate slightly more congestion in the near term as a result of the development’s traffic...

The compromise with Proterra — in which the city will not require full traffic improvements for new development, tolerating slightly more congestion instead — sets a new precedent...

By agreeing to the compromise, the city also believes it can pressure the Oregon Department of Transportation to do the same thing at Cooley Road and U.S. Highway 97.

ODOT has said no new construction can happen near that intersection - including at the city’s 1,500-acre Juniper Ridge development - unless the city comes up with $40 million to upgrade the intersection.

Instead, the city is trying to reach an agreement with ODOT that would allow slightly more congestion at the intersection, which is most clogged during the morning and evening rush hours.

Mayor Bruce Abernethy and Councilor Bill Friedman agreed at Monday’s meeting that the city’s move to allow more congestion on its streets would put it in a better position to convince ODOT to do the same thing.

So the Council is saying "we like screwing over our own citizens, would you please do so, too!"

Just what we Bend citizen's want--even more congestion in the name of developer subsidies. Right. I bet you agree with that, kind reader. Just a little more "temporary" congestion in front of Lowe's on 97 during rush hour.

To be continued...

Sources for plans:
OTAK 8/05

Juniper Ridge Partners (JRP) 5/2/07

Cooper-Robertson, approved by City Council 7/16/08

Junper Ridge Master Plan Only Saves 100 Acres For 10+ Acre Plots

All that talk about how Juniper Ridge is going to save Bend by being a place where larger employers can have a place for facilities covering 10 acres or more?

Yep, it's just talk. The final Juniper Ridge Master Plan, approved by the City Council on July 16, has only 100 acres set aside for large plots. That's awfully little, considering Les Schwab already has 20, Pepsi wants 10, and two more companies are stated to want 10 each.

I brought this up in public comments before the vote and Mayor Abernethy chastised me, stating the Council is very aware of the need for jobs, and that private landowners just outside Juniper Ridge will provide the necessary land.

He must know something I don't.

The old OTAK master plan that the Council deemed not good enough set aside 500 acres for large plots. Considering the paucity of such land in Bend, that makes a hell of a lot more sense. Especially considering up to 750 acres are being set aside for residential uses.

So someone tell me--where are the employers that will provide well-enough paying jobs to buy houses on that 750 acres be able to set up shop?