Prineville. Ore. – Industrial property in Prineville is turning into residential land in an effort to address the city’s housing crunch.
City councilors voted last week to rezone 33 acres of vacant industrial property, located about a mile north of downtown Prineville, for residential development. The rezoning is part of a plan by development company Smith Landing LLC to build a 100-space RV park later this year, if the city’s planning commission votes to approve the project at its meeting next month.
The Bulletin reports the RV park would initially serve as a temporary housing site for workers who are assigned to two data center construction projects in Prineville. After two years, the plan is to expand the park to about 160 spaces and open it up to the public for housing.
Part of the code change required any proposed worker housing projects to include a plan for what would happen to the property after two years, which is how long the code allows any worker housing developments to operate. That’s where Smith Landing’s 160-space public RV Park, as well as this week’s residential rezoning approval, comes in.
The rezoning generated some concern from the state’s Land Conservation and Development Commission. A letter the commission sent the city in November questioned what the economic impact would be of rezoning industrial land for residential purposes.
However, city officials noted this property, as well as three others around town, had been previously identified in the city’s 2007 comprehensive plan as land that had been inappropriately zoned industrial because they neighbored residential areas.
