This dead end of Moose Run. a street in the Spring Meadows area of southwest Albany, is where a requested road through the Oak Creek Nature Area would start. (Thought you could use a photo without iced-over streets.)
A land owner’s plan for a road through a southwest Albany nature area to access his landlocked property along the Calapooia River is dead, for now anyway.
For this story, we have to go back in time.
In 2021, the city council granted property owner Curt Sorte an access easement from the dead end of Moose Run straight to a corner of his land, about 360 feet to the north.
Then. in November 2023, Sorte came before the council asking for the easement to be modified after finding that the original would not work because of wetlands. He proposed a longer easement, about 1,500 feet, to a different part of his property farther to the north.
Property owners in the Spring Meadows subdivision objected. They feared a road through the nature area and across the Oak Creek Trail would cause the loss of many trees and have other bad effects.
The matter came before the council again last Wednesday, Jan. 10. Since November, the city staff had done a title search on the land involved, known as “Tract J.” The tract is one of several parcels given to the city as a natural area when the Spring Meadows subdivision was developed about 20 years ago.
“The title search produced recorded documentation of a restrictive covenant over the city-owned Tract J that prohibits nearly all uses including the construction of new roads,” a memo to the council said.
The memo also said that the Division of State Lands required the land to be protected as either wetland or “upland buffer.”
“Given this information,” Community Development Director Matthew Ruettgers concluded in the memo, “the city cannot approve any land use application or use involving the construction of improvements on Tract J and/or a driveway coming off the end of Moose Run.”
The council received the report Wednesday and took no action. So that’s where the matter rests.
City Attorney Sean Kidd, though, told the council that Sorte had retained a lawyer.
So whether this request to cut a road through the mixed woodland along the Oak Creek Trail is dead for good, the neighbors and the council will just have to wait and see. ((hh)
“No motorized vehicles” is one of the restrictions in the city-owned nature area along the Oak Creek Trail.
God bless those MEADOWs folks. Stand UP!
I have more thoughts…… up lander buffer
One ought never purchase property with no access and which requires government action to create said access. Due diligence is Directive #1. Or…the Council could intervene and pass some sort of Magic Bullet that would scrub away the restrictive covenant. Nothing is cast in stone when the government makes up its mind.
The use that Mr. Sorte is requesting is prohibited by the covenant created when the tract was formed. Why should he be able to retain a lawyer and bully a change that affects a whole neighborhood?
Anybody can “retain a lawyer”. You’ve never heard of somebody having a “lawyer on retainer”?
EXACTLY HOW would he “bully” anything? An accurate example of a lawyer “bullying” would be the Prosecuting Attorney charging somebody that relies on a Public Defender. Hiring an attorney to represent you hardly qualifies. Seeking legal advice doesn’t mean he is going to pursue matters.
Put up or….
The city previously gave Sorte access. This looks like breach of contract to me, probably costing him a couple of hundred thousand dollars. He has every right to seek compensation for the loss in value to his property as a result of the cities actions. A bit of demonization going on here, but I do not know anyone who would feel good about taking such a loss given the circumstances.
The city has no problem taking the only access to someone’s home and damaging natural areas if money is involved. At least, he does have some access to his property. If the land was purchased by a someone that could secure funding, they would bypass any law to ensure the access request goes through.
Without facts or explanation, assertions like these one don’t carry any weight.
The city knows what I am writing about and they will not own up to anything. Unfortunately, the truth does not carry any weight either. What happens in the government stays in the government that is why whistleblowers are so rare. No one cares or believes it until it happens to them, Professional liars know how to cover their tracks. It is foolish to believe that people put themselves out there to be criticized and verbally attacked without a reason. Even the deals the city makes where the facts are clearly questionable are overlooked. Thinking beyond the obvious is not being untruthful.