Skyline preservation deal stalled
Skyline Forest from Tumalo Reservoir. Photo: Jim Yuskavitch.
SALEM — The ballyhooed Skyline Forest preservation deal of 2009 appears no closer to reality than it was two years ago. If anything, it may be further away.
Two years ago, environmentalists and a real estate company agreed on legislation that would allow the preservation of most of Skyline Forest in exchange for permission to build 282 dwellings in the northern part of the property. Thanks to environmentalists’ support, the law exempted the landowner from normal land use rules despite the vociferous objections of the Association of Oregon Counties, which called it a dangerous precedent.
Now, however, the deal appears at an impasse. The landowner, Cascade Timberlands, says it needs more development rights to make the deal work financially.
The local environmental group that signed off on the original deal, Central Oregon LandWatch, says it’s not interested. Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, says he’s ready to introduce legislation to make any new deal a reality — as soon as someone tells him that a deal has been cut.
The uncertainty is a problem for the nonprofit Deschutes Land Trust. The trust, which acquires land for conservation purposes, was in line to buy the Skyline Forest under the law passed in 2009.
The group even applied for and received $4 million in federal grant money to help buy the land. The first grant, worth $1.5 million, expires in March 2012; the second, worth $2.5 million, expires in April 2013.
With 13 months to close a deal before his group loses its first grant, Brad Chalfant, executive director of the Deschutes Land Trust, said that with no firm deal, his group has largely been unable to raise private funds to complete the purchase. The uncertainty “has been a real problem for us,” he said.
The history of Skyline Forest dates to 2006. That’s when Fidelity National Timber Resources bought more than 250,000 acres in Oregon after another firm declared bankruptcy. That purchase included the roughly 33,000 acres northwest of Bend.
In 2007, then-Bend Rep. Chuck Burley spearheaded a bill to enable the formation of nonprofit community forests to prevent habitat and logging areas from being turned into subdivisions.
The Deschutes Land Trust began working to make Skyline just such a forest to preserve a prominent portion of Bend residents’ scenery.
In 2009, Whisnant and Rep. Judy Stiegler, D-Bend, worked to get a law passed to make Skyline a reality. Under the bill, Cascade, a subsidiary of Fidelity, could build in a small portion of Skyline in return for stripping its development rights off a large swath of forest that would be sold to the trust.
Now, however, Cascade has determined that it would need more units of housing to make the deal work financially, said the company’s lobbyist, Linda Swearingen, a former Deschutes County commissioner.
She said the company’s agreement to 282 units was a “shot in the dark,” saying the firm hadn’t had time to research the economics when the 2009 legislation arose.
Swearingen declined to confirm or deny the number of units that the company is seeking, though it is pegged by others as being between 500 and 800. In exchange, the company would sell an even larger area of land — the size of which she refused to discuss.
She said the desire to expand the development is “based on the fact that to develop the site will be extremely expensive.”
At the time of the 2009 deal, Central Oregon LandWatch made numerous concessions ranging from the number of units to whether the lighting of the Skyline development would be designed to face downward to better preserve starry nighttime views for residents of Bend.
And Paul Dewey, the acting director of the group, said his board is not in the mood to make further concessions.
“Our position is that a deal’s a deal: We came to a deal in 2009, and we don’t see any need to change that deal,” he said. “I certainly haven’t been authorized by my board to negotiate or anything like that.”
Brad Nye, conservation director of the Deschutes Land Trust, said his group bears no animosity toward Cascade for trying to change the terms of its deal.
“They’re in the driver’s seat: It’s their property; it’s their judgment on what needs to be done out there,” he said, but added that “we’re chomping at the bit to use that money.”
Nick Budnick can be reached 503-566-2839 or at nbudnick@bendbulletin.com.
