About the Sustainable City Year Program
The Sustainable City Year Program is an innovative university-community partnership program founded by the Sustainable Cities Institute (SCI) at the University of Oregon in 2009-10. In this unique model, existing courses, faculty, and students from across campus are purposefully directed toward a single Oregon community over an academic year to address vexing issues identified by the community. SCYP and the students, faculty, and communities it partners with are a shining example of Oregon innovation, leadership, and how leveraging resources can contribute to meaningful, additional, and society-wide value.
SCYP is more than just students working on a project for a class. It is creating Oregon’s future workforce, developing a connection with local government and Oregon communities, and generating creative, out of the box ideas by high achieving students and faculty experts. The projects that SCYP works on are prioritized by our partners, which means they are important and relevant. It is difficult to put a limit on SCYP’s potential, just as communities have limitless possibilities to improve the quality of life for their residents, businesses, and visitors.
Partnering with SCYP
Cities and public agencies apply to partner with SCYP – detailed information about the partnership and application is part of Request for Proposals.
2022-23 Partner
City of Sisters
The Sustainable City Year Program will be returning to central Oregon as it partners with the City of Sisters. Located at the foot of the Cascades mountains in central Oregon, Sisters offers beautiful natural surroundings, a variety of year-round recreational opportunities, and a vibrant local economy. Now in its 14th year of partnerships with Oregon communities, SCYP Sisters will kick off fall term with four courses, all in the UO’s School of Planning, Public Policy and Management. This year will also highlight the collaborative nature that characterizes Sisters and Sisters Country, with the City, School District, and Parks and Recreation District all participating in the SCYP partnership. Winter and spring term courses will be added throughout the year as project and course matches are made.
FALL 2022
A New Future for the Sisters Elementary School Site
- City Partner Leads: Curt Scholl, Scott Woodford, Jen Holland
- Classes: PPPM 610, PPPM 613, PPPM 617
- Faculty: Anne Brown, Marc Schlossberg, Kaarin Knudson, Megan Banks
Project Description: The city of Sisters, Sisters School District, and Sisters Parks and Recreation District partnered to evaluate potential opportunities for the existing Sisters Elementary School site when the school vacates the site and moves to its new campus. Students envisioned site-based planning and design proposals focused on three distinct topic areas:
- Adaptive Reuse and Teacher Workforce Housing
- Age-Friendly Neighborhood
- Recreation/Community Center; Outdoor Recreation
Recommendations: Students learned about the community's values, including livability, accessibility, equity, and safety, and applied these to their overarching themes of connectivity, built spaces with a focus on workforce housing, and open and green spaces. Students proposed cohesive on- and off-site transportation networks to facilitate transportation options; diverse, affordable housing options to support a local workforce; and green spaces to encourage a healthy lifestyle for Sisters’ residents of all ages, incomes, and abilities.
FALL 2022
Sisters Affordable Housing Funding Options
- City Partner Lead: Joe O’Neill
- Class: PPPM 629
- Faculty: Rebecca Lewis
Project Description: Sisters has an established affordable housing reserve fund to address community needs for housing. The Public Budgeting class analyzed this fund, and, as an exercise, brainstormed modeling for other fund contributions. These revenue sources were evaluated for their equity, efficiency, neutrality, productivity, certainty, and convenience.
Recommendations: Potential revenue sources were evaluated for 1) revenue generated and 2) non-monetary impacts to residents and the City. A unifying theme across revenue sources included capturing value associated with high productivity activities within the City such as tourism and tourist-facing industries, and elevated construction and home prices. The highest ranking recommendations had revenue certainty, ease of implementation, and captured value from high-traffic industries that depend on service workers to make them profitable. Recommendations that proposed mixing and matching options rather than a single option to create incentive structures ranked highly. In order to move forward, students recommended that the City assess local economic activity and future trends and coordinate with nearby municipalities to lessen potential impacts and promote greater productivity for the entire region.
WINTER / SPRING 2023
Support for the New Explore Sisters Nonprofit
- City Partner Leads: Scott Humpert, Kerry Prosser
- Classes: PPPM 620, PPPM 688
- Faculty: Dyana Mason, Elena Fracchia, Kim Thompson
Project Description: Sisters’ new nonprofit destination management organization, Explore Sisters, is tasked with a variety of economic development-related responsibilities in the region. Nonprofit management students are assisting Explore Sisters by providing a two- to three-year strategic action plan to develop, implement and sustain itself.
Recommendations: Over winter, students developed a scope work in collaboration with the Explore Sisters Executive Director. Over spring, students have been conducting research and interviews, and are preparing a final report with recommendations that will be presented to the Board in early June. Recommendations will focus on three topics:
- Mission, Vision, Values
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Financial Opportunities
WINTER 2023
Reimagining Housing Options for the Sisters Elementary School Site
- Partner Leads: Curt Scholl, Scott Woodford, Jen Holland
- Class: ARCH 484/584
- Faculty: Ceara O’Leary
Project Description: The Sisters School District is seeking ideas for adaptive reuse of the existing elementary school building and site. Adaptive reuse, defined as repurposing an existing structure for a new use, will involve redesigning the building’s interior and exterior to fit community-centered functions. Architecture students focused on affordable and workforce housing design as well as community-oriented uses.
Recommendations: Studio participants developed proposals that included affordable housing and a vibrant community center with indoor and outdoor recreational facilities. Students designed with three main approaches: 1) designing and organizing small housing clusters throughout the east side of the site, 2) designing and adding housing above the existing school, and 3) designing and organizing housing on the west side of the site. Proposed housing types included apartments, duplexes, and quadplexes. Different community recreational use and spaces anchored their designs.
WINTER / SPRING 2023
Co-Living for Changing Families in Central Oregon
- Partner Leads: Curt Scholl, Scott Woodford, Jen Holland
- Classes: ARCH 485/585, ARCH 486/586
- Faculty: Nancy Cheng
Project Description: The city of Sisters identified the need for 1,100 housing units to accommodate its 2041 projected population and is exploring “efficiency measures” as an alternative to expanding its urban growth boundary. Architecture students reviewed aspects of these measures and considered contemporary approaches to how people are choosing to live. As the definition of “family” evolves and innovative design thinking is needed for new household types, students envisioned inclusive places where people can thrive through mutual support and sharing, and where architectural spaces can adapt to changing needs.
Recommendations: Each student designed amenities and services for the site’s north edge to attract on-site residents and the public, as a gateway into the city. Housing clusters with varied unit sizes are to the south, buffered from highway 20 with a berm. Shared spaces for gardening, socializing and recreation support community and natural organisms, while providing green reserves for future development. Maximizing natural ventilation, daylighting, passive solar and rainwater harvesting could make the site resilient. Centralized management could make district energy resources such as photovoltaic panels and geothermal earth tubes effective.
SPRING 2023
Sparking Bicycling Joy in Sisters: Improving Transportation Options
- Partner Lead: Paul Bertagna, Jackson Dumach
- Class: PPPM 438/538
- Faculty: Marc Schlossberg
Project Description: Students examined a variety of challenges, perspectives, and possible solutions related to bicycle transportation. Areas of study included multi-use paths and other ways to make auto-centric streets more bicycle-friendly; safe routes to school opportunities; bicycle tourism internal to Sisters as well as regional opportunities; and marketing materials/campaigns related to bicycling.
Recommendations: Student recommendations are intended to provide Sisters and its transportation partners with information that will support bicycle transportation opportunities that are safe, connected, and comfortable for all user types in Sisters.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the City of Sisters, Sisters School District, and Sisters Parks and Recreation District for the opportunity to be a part of Sisters future. Special thanks to Sisters Community Development Director Scott Woodford, Sisters School District Superintendent Curt Scholl, Sisters Parks and Recreation District Executive Director Jennifer Holland, Sisters City Recorder Kerry Prosser, Sisters City Manager pro tem Joe O’Neill, Sisters Public Works Director Paul Bertagna for their participation. SCYP also acknowledges the Sisters City Council, Mayor, and Sisters School Board for their support.