DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 84
THE HOUSING CRUNCH
WARRENTON OPEN
TO HOUSING
GROWTH
ONE DOLLAR
Astoria
moves to
up home
inventory
Homestay lodging
will be restricted
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
A new housing development in Warrenton at South east Willow Drive and Southeast Huckleberry Avenue . Clatsop County’s fast-
est-growing community may look into establishing partnerships to provide more housing.
COUNTY’S FASTEST-GROWING COMMUNITY INVITES
DEVELOPMENT MORE THAN REGIONAL NEIGHBORS
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
W
ARRENTON — Warren-
ton is exploring ways to
relieve the housing crunch
that may involve tweaking the
development code.
The city may be less of a tour-
ist destination than Astoria, Sea-
side and Cannon Beach, but it is the
county’s fastest-growing commu-
nity over the past decade and faces a
housing shortage every bit as dire as
the rest of Clatsop County.
On most rental advertisement
websites, the available apartment
options in Warrenton are few, and they
almost disap-
pear below the
$900-a -month
threshold.
On
the
homebuyer
side, Warren-
ton in late Sep-
tember
had
seven active
listings
for
Pam
single-fam-
Ackley
ily residences
priced between
$150,000 to $250,000, according
to clatsopmls.com, the countywide
home -listing database.
Forty-fi ve homes in this price
range had sold in the previous 12
months. This shakes out to approx-
imately two months’ worth of
inventory.
“That’s not very much,” said
Pam Ackley, a city commissioner
and broker at Windermere Stellar.
Most Warrenton-area home pur-
chases in the last year occurred
below $350,000 list price, and the
vast majority were resale homes.
Above that price point, it becomes a
buyer’s market.
The Astoria Planning Commission on
Tuesday voted to recommend development
code changes that will allow property own-
ers to build and rent out tiny homes and other
accessory dwelling units on their land.
Drafted by Community Development
Director Kevin Cronin, the amendments are
meant to create more housing options by
removing restrictions on development.
Astoria, like the rest of Clatsop County,
has a housing shortage that experts have
started labeling a crisis.
One of the City Council’s goals last
year was to promote housing that Astori-
ans can afford. Cronin said that encouraging
accessory dwelling units — which include
attached and detached structures, such as
garages and converted spaces, such as base-
ments — is a modest step toward addressing
the scarcity.
The code currently allows these units “in
certain zones under strict conditions,” Cro-
nin wrote in a staff report. Since the units
were added to the code in 2004, six permits
have been sought, and only one unit has been
built.
See ASTORIA, Page 4A
PART THREE OF FIVE
ABOUT
THIS SERIES
The housing crunch
is everywhere in
Clatsop County and
impacts all walks of
life.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
A new housing development is located at South east Willow Drive
and Southeast Huckleberry Avenue in Warrenton . The city doesn’t
have much land left ready to develop.
For some younger
people, living with
parents an option
A competition
for rentals
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
ictoria Crist considers her-
self lucky to be back living
with her parents in Seaside.
The 22-year-old said she has
seen the city cater more and
more to tourists to the detriment
of locals seeking housing.
Since graduating from Sea-
side H igh S chool in 2012, C rist
V
has worked in the South Coast’s
service industry . She holds
down jobs at a restaurant in Can-
non Beach and a video store in
Astoria.
When she fi rst moved out
more than two years ago, Crist
said she was fortunate to fi nd
a one-bedroom apartment for
$800 a month that was OK with
her Siberian h usky, Kara . Now,
she said, similar places in Sea-
side start at $1,000 to $1,200 a
month.
See CRIST, Page 4A
This week, The Daily
Astorian examines
the housing crunch
through the eyes
of elected officials,
economic experts,
real-estate profes-
sionals, developers,
homeowners and
renters.
The series will
explore the forces
driving the issue,
along with what is —
and is not — possible
for the North Coast
to achieve. And, the
coverage does not
end this week, as the
Astorian tracks the
challenges and solu-
tions going forward.
COMING
THURSDAY
• Shortage in
Seaside divides
homeowners, labor
force
• In Gearhart,
vacation rentals and
lack of infrastructure
• Cannon Beach
prioritizes workforce
housing
Warrrenton
reaches out to
feds on dam
City wants clarity on
control of structure
By DERRICK DePLEDGE
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — The city will ask the
federal government to clarify or rescind a
letter that gave control of the Eighth Street
Dam to the Skipanon Water Control District.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Natural Resources Conservation Service
wrote in February 2014 that the federal inter-
est in the dam and two other fl ood-control
structures on the Skipanon River was com-
plete because the structures had reached the
end of their useful lives of 50 years.
The federal government said the water
district was free to operate, modify or
decommission the dam as the owner.
“It was a hastily worded, inartful and mis-
leading letter, which has caused all of this
confusion,” Akin Blitz, a Portland attorney
representing Warrenton, said at a City Com-
mission meeting Tuesday night.
Ron Smith, the state conservation engi-
neer for the Natural Resources Conservation
Service in Portland, told The Daily Asto-
rian in September that the federal govern-
ment viewed the water district as “the owner
because they had to obtain those land rights
to be able to install those structures and to
See DAM, Page 4A
See WARRENTON, Page 4A
Warrenton woman creates KnukNFutz fun with friends
New card game is
on sale online now
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Ever thought about creating your
own game?
Shelley Bruney, with her three girl-
friends and fellow gamers, hatched
an idea for a new card game, KnukN-
Futz, in May. Five months later, and
with cards in hand, the four are now
marketing their creation.
Bruney, from Warrenton, attended
Astoria High School with Linda
Haines-Katzberg, now in La Pine. On
a trip to a time share in Hawaii, Bruney
said, she met Nancy Rosendahl from
Newberg and Deanna Knox from
Dallas, Oregon. The four take annual
trips to Hawaii and Sunriver, where
Bruney said they play all types of
board and card games.
On one such trip to Sunriver in
May, a name was hatched.
“We were just playing card games,
and one of the gals threw that word
around,” Bruney said. “I said ‘We
should just do some type of a game
and call it that. The name alone would
sell it.’”
Bruney said the friends looked at a
lot of the games they liked and crafted
an amalgam. KnukNFutz resembles
Golf or Polish Poker, card games in
which players try to achieve the low-
est score possible from their cards.
Players in KnukNFutz start with
nine fl ipped-over cards of undeter-
mined value. Decks include cards
from a value of negative two through
12. Through luck and chance, play-
ers try to replace the fl ipped-over
cards with the lowest number possi-
ble. When the last card is fl ipped, a
player exclaims “KnukNFutz” and
hope they have the lowest score when
everyone else’s hidden cards are
revealed.
“It’s a good family game,” Bruney
said. “Our age limit is 9 to 99.”
Crash course
Once friends had the idea for a
game on paper, they started a crash
course in turning an idea into a fi n-
ished product.
First, they got a blank set of
cards to test their concept . Bruney
See CARD GAME, Page 7A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Warrenton resident Shelley Bruney
is one of the creators of the card
game KnukNFutz.