Document text
Developer may appeal RV campground ruling CENTRAL POINT -- An attorney for the developers of a proposed RV campground off Blackwell Road says a setback in court this week may be only temporary. "We will consider an appeal," Ashland attorney Chris Hearn said Friday. "I think everybody agrees that it wasn't a slam dunk for anybody." Hearn said any grounds for appeal would depend on written findings contained in a final order now being drafted for Jackson County Judge Ross Davis. On Thursday, Davis made preliminary oral findings in favor of the neighbors and the City of Central Point. Both had opposed the development. Hearn said the major grounds for Davis's findings were that the property lay within an "area of mutual concern" as defined by an urbanization agreement between Central Point and Jackson County. However, less than half of the 117-unit RV campground actually would fall within that area as defined by a hand-drawn map prepared in the 1980s, Hearn said. That agreement precluded any premature urbanization of the area to preserve rural uses and encourage a more compact development of Central Point. "The exclusive farm use is not a problem because campgrounds are allowed if they do not have an adverse impact on neighboring farm uses," Hearn said. Although Davis was unpersuaded that an RV campground would adversely affect an adjoining purebred goat operation, he reserved judgment on possible adverse impacts on an elk ranch across the street, Hearn said. The county initially had proposed 27 separate conditions, including fencing and a traffic study, before approving the development. But the county planning department failed to schedule a public hearing within 150 days of receiving the application. The slip-up angered neighbors and threw the dispute into the courts. When the applicant, Joe Rutigliano, sought a writ of mandamus demanding that the county approve the application immediately or show cause why not, the county declined to defend the writ, leaving neighbors to pursue the suit. Following Davis's decision, neighbor Donna Palmer expressed relief tempered by exasperation at the legal costs that the county's mistake imposed on neighbors. She also expressed wariness about future appeals. But Hearn said the county's process had been less than fair for the applicant as well, who should have been told on seeking the application that the property straddled the city and county's urbanization agreement boundary. Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA