A proposal by Central Oregon Community College to give the public more say in campus road construction has met with opposition from neighbors, who said at a recent City Council meeting the plan does not go far enough.

The college and city planners developed the proposed language in response to complaints by neighbors on Awbrey Butte that they were not given an opportunity to weigh in on the plan to build a loop road at the college. Some COCC neighbors appealed the city’s approval of the road to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.

The college put the plan on hold, and the land use board never issued a decision.

“What the college is now proposing is to come in and revise that section of the code, to make it clear they do have to go through a process, a roadway review, and then establishing what the standards are for that review, so that we can give a public process to these roadway developments,” Bend planning manager Colin Stephens said Monday.

Private roadway connections are not currently required to undergo city review, Stephens said.

However, COCC asked the city to review its plan for a road extension in 2011 anyway. It was under these rules that the city approved a COCC application for a 700-foot loop road, to connect sections of existing college roads.

Bend city councilors said the COCC plan for public involvement is a step in the right direction, but some councilors also said the college should be subject to stricter road standards. The City Council voted 6-0 on March 6 to continue the discussion at its next meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Jodie Barram had been excused earlier from the meeting.

Meanwhile, some neighbors of the college have asked the city to reimburse them for legal bills they incurred when they appealed the city approval of the COCC loop road to the land use board. In a Feb. 19 letter to the city, neighbor John Harper asked the city to reimburse neighbors for more than $7,000 in legal expenses. Stephens said the city declined to pay the neighbors’ legal bills.

The proposed code amendment currently before the City Council would require the city to mail notices of COCC private road applications to neighbors within 250 feet of the project, allow an opportunity for public comment and the option for people to appeal city decisions on the roads. A COCC road application would not automatically go to a public hearing under the proposed amendment, but planners would have the ability to send controversial applications to hearings officers.

The college has not applied again to build the loop road, Stephens said.

City rules already require that any development at the college be at least 100 feet from all neighboring properties.

At the March 6 council meeting, opponents of the COCC proposal to amend city code called for more rules on new campus roads.

“Nothing is said about noise, congestion, traffic density, curve radius, safety and environmental issues or community involvement in the review process, outside the limited scope of the (proposed) application process,” said Agnese Wojdak. The City Council also received emails from Awbrey Butte residents who support the COCC proposal.

Lawyer Myles Conway, who represents the college, said, “What we’re trying to do is give a public process that does not exist today.”

The city does not require other property owners who build roads on their own land to consider the impact to neighbors, so it would be unfair to impose such standards only on COCC, Conway said. Plus, single-family home lots in the area are typically a minimum half-acre and the existing 100-foot buffer between college development and neighbors “is one of the largest buffers anywhere in the city,” Conway said.