Zoning in Deschutes County, Oregon: The Destination-Resort Fight

Why Bend's population matters to zoning law here

Oregon's destination-resort framework, created under Statewide Planning Goal 8 and implemented through ORS 197.455, generally allows counties to designate specific mapped areas where large-scale resort development -- golf courses, lodging, and resort-supporting residential units -- can occur on land that would otherwise carry restrictive rural, forest, or farm zoning. But the statute includes a population-based guardrail: a county may not approve a new destination resort within 24 air miles of an urban growth boundary belonging to a city of 100,000 or more residents, unless the resort's residential component is limited to units necessary for the resort's own staff and management.

For most of Deschutes County's history as a hotbed of destination-resort development -- Sunriver, Black Butte Ranch, Eagle Crest, Pronghorn, Tetherow, and others -- this restriction was a non-issue, because Bend's population sat well below 100,000. That changed as Bend's growth accelerated through the 2010s and 2020s: the city's population has now grown past the 100,000 threshold, which means the 24-mile restriction is, as a matter of state law, now a live constraint on any new destination-resort proposal within that radius of Bend's urban growth boundary -- covering a large share of the county's private land.

2023: the county votes to adopt the restriction locally, then reverses itself

Anticipating this threshold, Central Oregon LandWatch -- a conservation and land-use advocacy group -- filed a legislative text amendment application with Deschutes County in 2022, docketed as case 247-22-000835-TA, asking the county to add ORS 197.455(1)(a)'s specific language directly into the text of its own Destination Resort (DR) combining-zone code. The idea was straightforward: rather than relying on the state statute alone, write the 24-mile, staff-housing-only restriction explicitly into the county's own reviewable zoning ordinance, so it would be unambiguous and locally enforceable going forward.

The application moved through Deschutes County's Planning Commission in early 2023 and reached the Board of County Commissioners for a hearing on July 10, 2023. On July 26, 2023, the Board voted 2-1 to approve the amendment -- adopting LandWatch's proposed restriction into county code. But the story didn't end there: on reconsideration, at a meeting addressing the first reading of the implementing Ordinance 2023-009 on August 9, 2023, the Board reversed its own prior vote and instead voted 2-1 to deny the amendment. Coverage of the episode at the time framed it plainly: the commissioners had reversed their own approval of rules that would have limited new, luxury destination resorts near Bend.

What the reversal does -- and doesn't -- mean for a land buyer

The Board's August 2023 reversal means Deschutes County's own Destination Resort combining-zone code does not contain the explicit ORS 197.455(1)(a) restriction that LandWatch sought to add. It does not mean the underlying state statute and Statewide Goal 8 have stopped applying -- state law and statewide planning goals generally bind local land-use decisions regardless of whether local code text separately restates them. In practice, that means a new destination-resort application within 24 air miles of Bend's UGB would still likely need to grapple with the state-level restriction during county review, even without matching language in the local zoning ordinance -- but exactly how the county would apply that restriction procedurally, absent its own explicit code text, is genuinely unresolved as far as this page can confirm.

1. If a destination-resort-scale development is part of your plans for land within roughly 24 miles of Bend's urban growth boundary, raise the ORS 197.455/Goal 8 population-threshold restriction explicitly and early with Deschutes County Community Development, rather than assuming it doesn't apply because it isn't spelled out in the county's own DR-zone code text.
2. Confirm the current, precise distance from your parcel to Bend's UGB boundary -- 24 air miles is a meaningful but not enormous radius, and whether a specific site falls inside or outside it can be a close call worth verifying with GIS tools rather than estimating.
3. If you're evaluating an existing, already-approved destination resort (rather than proposing a new one), this restriction on new resorts generally doesn't apply retroactively -- but confirm any expansion or modification you're considering isn't treated as a new approval under the county's code.
4. Watch for further county action: because the underlying legal tension (state restriction vs. no matching local code text) was not resolved by the 2023 vote, a future Board could revisit this question, and Central Oregon LandWatch or another party could reapply or pursue other avenues.