OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Astoria is working through a housing crunch.
Astoria moves
in right direction
on housing crunch
A
n acute shortage of low and moderate-income housing,
including a rental vacancy rate perhaps close to zero, is
continuing to complicate private lives and the overall
economy in communities around the mouth of the Columbia River.
It was good to see the Astoria City Council take a logical step
last week that promises eventually to bring some accessory dwell-
ing units onto the market to ease the housing crunch. As our story
explained, owners of single-family homes will in some cases be
allowed to remodel interior spaces, such as basements and attics,
or build detached structures, to set up extra living quarters for
long-term renters.
This has been a fall-back solution to housing needs for gen-
erations. It increases the number of residents who can live in the
same amount of land, and does so in ways that cause less impact
than tearing down single-family dwellings and replacing them
with multistory apartment buildings or condos.
Similarly, taking in boarders to rent a spare bedroom or other
space is a time-honored way of stretching existing housing stock,
while helping owners make their mortgage payments. This goes
on all the time, usually without anyone letting the government in
on the fact.
The Astoria council’s action wasn’t unanimous, with Councilor
Cindy Price raising a valid concern about making certain neigh-
bors get some say in any changes that may impact them for years
to come. But with only three applications for such units in the past
decade, it appears unlikely there will be a crush of proposals by
would-be developers before the council takes another look at the
issue in a year.
Small step
Lack of much interest in adding accessory dwelling units under
previous regulations highlights the bigger problem with the plan
— not that it is too big a step, but rather that it is unlikely to do
very much very soon to address our pressing housing needs.
It would have been good to see the city give more consider-
ation to permitting more tiny houses, free-standing residences typ-
ically 400 square feet or smaller that can be situated in large yards
or other underutilized land. But even this would be insufficient to
make much of a dent in our housing need.
Although Astoria occupies a small peninsula of the Columbia
River, and is geographically constrained by forestlands, topog-
raphy and landslide-prone areas, in the past it has contained a
higher population than it does today. It may be that societal expec-
tations have changed and that once-acceptable living conditions
and densities are no longer appropriate today. But as a resident at
the meeting commented, the city can work to increase housing
stock by encouraging developers to buy abandoned buildings and
turn them into housing complexes. Planning Commissioner Sean
Fitzpatrick said private parties have been doing things just like that
in recent months.
It’s clear that a broader regional strategy is required, something
that looks in a deliberate way at enhancing the prospects for pri-
vate investments in solutions like apartment complexes, well-de-
signed and maintained manufactured housing parks, and in some
cases government-subsidized housing to help meet the needs of
Social Security retirees and young families just starting out.
Commuter options
There are indications that some would-be home buyers in
Clatsop County are starting to explore the option of trading lon-
ger commutes for lower prices by shopping in neighboring Pacific
County, Washington, where values have been slower to accelerate.
This is a rational solution, but one that comes with added personal
and societal costs in terms of lost time, vehicle wear and tear, con-
gestion and greenhouse gas emissions. This comes as Portlanders
are increasingly looking to the coast as a place to escape the city’s
even higher prices and worse congestion.
Whatever the reaction is to its action last week, the Astoria City
Council should be commended for continuing to focus its energy
on working toward housing answers. As a bi-state region, we
would do well to get all relevant agencies together every so often
to work for broader, long-term ways to address what is certain to
become more and more of a problem as people crowd into this
desirable area in coming decades.
The soul of a corporation
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
W
e know from an infamous
Supreme Court ruling
that corporations are
people. They may be heartless, like
the pharmaceutical
company that jacks
up the price of a
lifesaving drug. Or
clueless, like Pepsi
with its latest ad
solving racism by
having a fashion model give a can
of colored sugar water to a cop.
But can a corporation also have
a soul? If the answer is yes, that
soul passed on to higher ground
a few days ago, when Mary
Anderson, a co-founder of the
outdoor retailer REI, died at the age
of 107.
The wonder is not that she lived
to triple digits. She loved clean air,
a good fight and a well-told joke.
The wonder is that someone born
in 1909, when many veterans of
the Civil War were still arguing
over slavery, could live to see her
common-sensical values flourish in
an otherwise unrecognizable brave
new world.
The corporations of 2017 that
strive to do well while doing good,
the ones that want to step up as
global citizens while the Trump
administration steps back, owe a
part of their enlightened self-interest
to Mary Anderson.
She was the longest-standing
member of REI, formerly called
Recreational Equipment Inc., the
company she founded with her
husband, Lloyd Anderson, in 1938.
Initially, they ran the operation
out of the home they built in west
Seattle. Their attic was the ware-
house. Their kitchen was where
Mary stitched together tents. From
that farmhouse grew an empire
of goose down and freeze-dried
fettuccine.
I interviewed this founding
couple a few years before Lloyd
Anderson died in 2000, at the
age of 98. Mary started out as a
public-school teacher. Lloyd was a
city transit worker. They loved the
mountains. But they were frustrated
that you couldn’t buy decent climb-
ing gear without getting gouged.
And so they started importing
ice axes from Austria, selling them
to fellow climbers at cost. The first
23 members contributed $1 each.
This was in the 1930s, the Great
Depression, and also the height
of the cooperative movement.
The Pacific Northwest was full of
Scandinavians who didn’t think
consumer-owned companies were
communist plots. Seattle’s public
power utility, City Light, and a
medical cooperative, Group Health,
grew from the same soil.
And maybe one day, if
Medicare-for-all emerges as the
REI
REI’s flagship store in Seattle.
obvious solution to our dysfunc-
tional and incomprehensible health
care system, we’ll see a little bit of
the co-op spirit there as well.
The Andersons instilled their
company with an unusual business
ethic. “I never thought a man should
make money off his friends,” as
Lloyd said.
To this day,
REI is not a
corporation
in the normal
sense of the
word. It’s a
consumer
cooperative
— the nation’s
largest —
owned not by
shareholders,
but by
members.
To this day, REI is not a corpo-
ration in the normal sense of the
word. It’s a consumer cooperative
— the nation’s largest — owned not
by shareholders, but by members.
There are more than 6 million active
members, and Mary Anderson,
officially, was member No. 2.
While other retailers are
struggling, REI is thriving. With
more than 140 stores in 36 states,
the company just recorded record
revenue of $2.56 billion for 2016. It
fell astray at times. As it grew into
a national behemoth, the company
forced the Andersons out of their
role in guiding REI’s operations.
But the Anderson influence
remained. REI now gives back
more than 70 percent of its profits
to the outdoor community and
other worthwhile projects. One of
the company’s biggest initiatives
this year is an effort to boost the
profile of future Mary Andersons
— women who love nature — to
change the image of male-domi-
nated outdoor sports.
A few years ago on Black
Friday, that horrid stampede of
Christmas season greed, REI did
something revolutionary — it
closed. Employees were given a
paid day off and told to take a hike
or spend some time with family.
Corporations behaving badly
tend to get most of our attention. It
will take years for Wells Fargo to
dig itself out of the fiasco it created
with customers who were burdened
with accounts they didn’t authorize.
Volkswagen, once known for the
little Beetle that was many a baby
boomer’s first car, stumbled badly
when it rolled out autos that could
cheat emissions tests. And Fox
News, with its numerous sexual
harassment settlements, is begin-
ning to look more and more like a
criminal enterprise.
On the other hand, you have
Patagonia, another outdoor retailer,
pulling out of the annual industry
show in Utah this year to protest the
state’s hostility toward the public
land that the company’s customers
depend on.
Business schools study this sort
of thing — how to achieve a brand-
ing of authenticity, how to be seen
as a corporation with a conscience.
But it’s not that complicated.
“In founding REI as a co-op,
Lloyd and Mary saw a higher
purpose in their work,” said Sally
Jewell, an interior secretary under
President Barack Obama and a for-
mer chief executive officer of REI.
The Andersons proved that a higher
purpose with a solid bottom line
does not have to be an oxymoron.
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