Help Us Protect our Madras Neighborhoods

Community Destruction. Nov. 2025

The City has a “Community Development Department”, headed by Nick Snead. Some people who live in NE Madras near the hospital now call it “Community Destruction”!

Recently they approved the construction of a huge 3-story apartment complex in the middle of a nice, quiet, dark neighborhood full of older and retired people and nursing homes and other elder care homes. This is on Oak Street right across from the back of the hospital. It is zoned for single family homes or MEDICAL purposes. It should be for doctors’ offices, if Madras is ever going to attract more doctors and specialists, and perhaps nice homes on top of that hill where doctors and their families may want to live. They don’t prefer to live in apartments.

The builder is from Bend, and he bought this 3-acre lot from ME about 2 years ago, wanting to divide it into 7 to 10 lots. Single-family houses, (R-1 Zone) land is cheaper than R-2 or R-3, which is for apartments , so he got the City to change the zoning to more expensive land to allow for apartments like this. How smart! That saves him a lot of money, but it destroys a neighborhood!

Many homes on Hillcrest St. and Shady Lane who now have views of the city and the mountains, will now be facing tall buildings with windows looking down into their back yards, and windows lit up at night, and dealing with the traffic of over 100 cars and 72 apartments, and the noise of people and barking dogs and whatever else all these apartments will bring.

The City Council had 2 meetings at which many people spoke against this proposed development by people who live out of town and don’t care how they ruin the livability of Madras. On October 28 the Council approved this zone change to allow for this high-rise apartment construction. What their motivation was to allow this we are now investigating. Whenever a small piece of land is re-zoned to allow one builder to make a lot of money, it smells of corruption. It needs to be investigated, now, while people are getting ready to file an Appeal before LUBA, the Land Use Board of Appeals in Salem.

There has been recent legislation in Oregon about affordable housing and allowing it in commercial zones, but nothing about R-1 Residential zones and changing zoning designation to accommodate them. This developer hoodwinked our City Council, and our town is suffering. There are plenty of large lots for sale that would accommodate this development without destroying a residential neighborhood, though it is more expensive land, but with all the tax incentives and subsidies for this type of housing, this builder can afford it. He knew what the zoning was when he purchased this 3 acres. If he wanted to build apartments he should have bought land that is suitable for that.

Marie Easter Madras, Oregon