The City of Sisters conducts periodic updates to its Comprehensive Plan and its various Public Facility Plans to provide orderly and sustainable growth of local roads, water, sewer, and parks. A key component to funding these public facilities is the system development charge (SDC) program. SDCs are one-time charges for new development—designed to recover the costs of infrastructure capacity.
The city’s current transportation SDC methodology was established 2019. In March 2026, the City completed the task of updating the capital improvement plan (CIP) for the transportation system. With the preparation/adoption of the new transportation CIP, the City commissioned this update of its transportation SDCs to get the methodology and rates current.
With this review and update, the City has stated several objectives:
• Review the basis for transportation charges to ensure a consistent methodology;
• Address specific policy, administrative, and technical issues which had arisen from application of the existing transportation SDCs;
• Determine the most appropriate and defensible fees, ensuring that development is paying its way;
• Consider possible revisions to the structure or basis of the charges which might improve equity or proportionality to demand;
• Provide clear, orderly documentation of the assumptions, methodology, and results, so that City staff could, by reference, respond to questions or concerns from the public. needed to serve new development.