Ranch north of Bend for sale again

Gopher Gulch Ranch, 350 acres of open country north of Bend, with Cascade Mountain vistas and riverfront rimrock, is again for sale.

The asking price is $13.1 million, said Gardner Williams, a partner and principal broker with Compass Commercial Real Estate Services, which represents the property owners, Edward and Doris Elkins.

The Elkinses plan on selling to one buyer, not dividing the property, which comes with water rights in the Swalley Irrigation District, an airplane landing strip in need of repair and nearly 5,000 feet of rimrock overlooking the Deschutes River.

The Elkinses decided to list the property, zoned for possible annexation, after the city of Bend shifted its priority for expanding its urban growth boundary in another direction, Williams said Monday. In October, a city steering committee, reviewing scenarios for city growth, agreed the better option lay to the southeast, not the northwest, Damian Syrnyk, a Bend senior planner, said Tuesday.

That, and the fact the Elkinses are getting older, prompted them to get what they can for the property now, Williams said. The Elkinses bought the 704-acre property in 1985. They plan on holding onto their home and 62 acres around it, but would include that property, too, at a later date.

The ranch was previously for sale in 2005, when Brooks Land & Cattle, a companion company of Brooks Resources, in Bend, purchased 140 acres with an option for another 300 acres, according to Williams and The Bulletin archives. Kirk Schueler, then-president of Brooks Resources, at the time contemplated up to 2,500 homes on the ranch within 20 years, according to The Bulletin. The deal fell apart as the housing market collapsed, Williams said.

“I had that ranch listed during the boom time, and had it under contract,” he said, “when everything blew up.”

After the 2005 sale, Edward Elkins paid off the $6.6 million lien the federal government had held against the property since 1987, according to The Bulletin archives. It stemmed from a federal conviction for violating export restrictions in the sale of two transport planes to Libya. Brooks Resources through a spokeswoman Tuesday said it was no longer interested in the property.

In 2010, the Elkinses sold 122 acres on the southern edge of the property to the Bend Park & Recreation District for $2.6 million, property that became part of the Riley Ranch Nature Preserve, according to The Bulletin archives and Deschutes County property records. They sold the park district another 32 acres along the Deschutes River in 2013 for $1.17 million.

Developers with plans to build on the property now on the market could face resistance.

Its present zoning, urban area reserve, allows single-family homes on 10-acre lots, or clusters of homes that maintain the same ratio of open space to development.

Miller Tree Farm, a subdivision proposed by Brooks Resources of 50 homes on 2-acre lots, clustered together, is such a development near Skyliners Road on Bend’s western boundary. That project is pending before the state Land Use Board of Appeals, opposed by a conservation group, Central Oregon LandWatch, which contends that plans to minimize wildlife impacts and reduce fire danger are in conflict with each other.

Complex and controversial projects in Deschutes County, from solar-power arrays to farmland weddings, often end up under challenge before a county hearings officer, followed by rounds of appeals, said Peter Gutowsky, the county planning manager.

“You have to factor those upfront costs as part of the process,” he said Monday.

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com