7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2018
Housing: ‘Based
on the present
housing prices,
there’s no housing’
Continued from Page 1A
This year, Bornstein Sea-
foods bought an apartment
complex to house workers.
Pelican Brewing, with a pub
in Cannon Beach, provides
seven apartment units on site
for employees, as well as a
house in Manzanita.
Pacific Seafood opened
a new 78,000-square-foot
plant in Warrenton this
summer on the Skipanon
River, returning after a fire
destroyed a previous plant
on the site five years before.
The new plant is expected
to employ as many as 140
full-time and 100 seasonal
workers.
But the West Coast sea-
food processor has strug-
gled over the past three to
five years to find housing for
seasonal workers across its
many locations, representa-
tives told the Planning Com-
mission Thursday.
News outlets in New-
port reported this summer
that the company was look-
ing at building housing for
employees along U.S. High-
way 101.
“It’s gotten to the extent
that we put people up in
hotels and motels,” said
Michael Miliucci, manager
of special projects and a law-
yer for Pacific Seafood.
But hotel rooms are diffi-
cult to come by on the coast,
particularly during tour-
ism-heavy months. They
looked into purchasing apart-
ment buildings, but did not
want to have to evict people
living in the units to make
room for employees.
“That’s just not the way
Pacific operates,” Miliucci
told planning commissioners.
The company looked
at options in Astoria, but
encountered long wait-
ing lists even on apart-
ment complexes still under
construction.
“Based on the pres-
ent housing prices, there’s
no housing,” Miliucci said.
Warrenton planning staff
recommended approval of
the code amendment, which
would allow the develop-
ment of the dormitory-style
housing as an outright use.
Kevin Cronin, the city’s
community
development
director, doesn’t know of
any other coastal commu-
nity contemplating this par-
ticular kind of solution to
address the lack of worker
housing. “We’re doing some
groundbreaking work,” he
told the Planning Commis-
sion. In the process, the city
may learn things it didn’t
anticipate, he acknowledged.
Paul Mitchell, the chair-
man of the Planning Com-
mission, agreed with Cronin
that Warrenton could have a
hand in pioneering ways for
companies to provide worker
housing.
“We’re seeing this more
and more in this community,”
he said. “It’s unfortunate that
we don’t have the kind of
housing that we need.”
There are no details yet
about how the interior of
Pacific Seafood’s warehouse
dormitory will be configured
to accommodate workers,
nor how many employees it
could house. The company
still needs to work with the
city’s building department
to nail down those specifics
and figure out the logistics
of turning a warehouse into
housing.
Bunnies: ‘I think the
winter will do a lot
of the work for us’
Continued from Page 1A
The humane society
accepts rabbits, but only if
they are surrendered by own-
ers. The organization doesn’t
accept strays — which is
what the Tolovana bun-
nies would be considered —
and the group already has
a monthslong waiting list,
humane society public infor-
mation manager Laura Klink
said.
Rabbit rescues like Rab-
bit Advocates in the Portland
area have been inundated for
years, said Mary Huey, the
group’s founder. A few shel-
ters, like Multnomah County
Animal Services, can accept
a large quantity of stray ani-
mals. But at most, the demand
of people trying to offload
unwanted bunnies consis-
tently outpaces the number of
homes willing to take them.
“The community is going
to have to get together and
realize it’s going to either stay
the same or going to get worse
if they don’t do anything …
And as a community step up
and find homes for these rab-
bits,” Huey said.
The situation leaves the
city with few options.
“The options are to kill
them or to trap them … And
then kill them,” St. Denis said.
The City Council did not
appear fond of either choice.
“I would love to see how
the (Chamber of Commerce)
would deal with the image of
Cannon Beach: Bunny kill-
ing capital of the world,” City
Councilor Mike Benefield
said.
City councilors did dis-
cuss some local measures,
like encouraging homeowners
to do their own trapping and
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requiring residents to keep
bunnies in hatches like
they do chickens if they
want to keep them around.
Mayor Sam Steidel sug-
gested looking into a ban
on feeding wildlife, since
many neighbors believe
the problem is escalating
because of some residents
and tourists intentionally
feeding the bunnies.
But City Councilor
George Vetter argued that
even without the extra
treats, there is enough nat-
ural foliage to support a
robust bunny population.
“There is plenty of
grass for them to eat, so
I don’t think having any
control over people feed-
ing them will affect the
numbers,” he said.
For now, the city will
continue researching and
is open to ideas from the
public.
If nothing else, St.
Denis thinks Mother
Nature will help at least
until next spring.
“I think the winter will
do a lot of the work for
us,” he said.
Cemetery: ‘We have a lot of unmarked graves’
Continued from Page 1A
association plans to install a
columbarium with 1-by-1-foot
niches for holding cremated
remains in urns.
“In talking with some of
the mortuaries, there’s a high
demand for those,” Burke
said. “People like the idea
of being buried in a niche as
opposed to in the ground.”
The cemetery has so
far sold more than 1,400
burial sites, but has only
recorded 881 burials, Burke
said. Some of the sites are
reserved by family members
who buy plots in advance.
Some were unmarked or
used wooden headstones that
eroded over time in the moist
environment.
The association is still
in the process of identify-
ing unmarked graves through
visual surveys, probing the
ground and dowsing.
Patti Van Osdol, the asso-
ciation’s vice president and
former owner of Granny Pat-
ti’s Trading Post farm and
feed store in Svensen, has
been digging through mar-
riage records, death certif-
icates, diaries, newspaper
articles and other historical
records, whittling down the
number of unmarked graves
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Steve Burke examines a headstone.
at the cemetery to less than
200.
“We have a lot of
unmarked graves, and I have
a lot of known community
burials,” she said. “It’s put-
ting the cemetery together.”
The association plans to
finish the parking lot and a
concrete slab for the flagpole
and veteran’s memorial this
year. Next year, it will con-
struct a kit pavilion, add dis-
abled-accessible
parking,
install the veteran’s memo-
rial and add the columbarium.
The goal is to finish by the
end of next year.
“With a little bit of coop-
eration with the weather and
our volunteers, we can have
a flag-raising here Veterans
Day,” Burke said. “That’s my
goal.”
Seaside: Two bond measures headed to voters
Continued from Page 1A
Seaside resident. He is married
and the father of five children.
With three city councilors
running unopposed, Barber
said he looked forward to the
potential of working with the
same group to finish projects.
These include oversee-
ing the $15 million Seaside
Civic and Convention Center
remodel and moving schools
outside the tsunami inunda-
tion zone.
Major issues in Seaside
include reducing homeless-
ness and improving the stock
of workforce housing. “I’m
the only candidate who has
done something tangible,”
Barber said.
The mayor pointed to his
record as a seven-year mem-
ber and president of the Help-
ing Hands Re-Entry Outreach
Center’s board of directors.
Because of the organiza-
tion’s efforts, “we’re housing
over 200 people every night
that would otherwise be on the
street,” Barber said.
Chapman counters that
Barber is not the only candi-
date who helps with the home-
less. He and his wife and
friends “have paid for many
hotel rooms and helped many
friends get back into housing,”
he said.
Barber described afford-
able housing as requiring a
“multicity solution,” with
mayors in Astoria, Warrenton,
Gearhart and Cannon Beach
teaming for regional solutions.
“You get things by study-
ing them and bringing people
together,” he said.
Affordable housing can be
accomplished without rais-
ing taxes by bringing build-
ers, developers and nonprofits
together, Barber said.
System
development
charges — fees paid by devel-
opers for infrastructure like
roads and sewers — may need
to be deferred or reduced to
encourage new housing. Fed-
eral or outside dollars may
also be available.
“There are some innova-
tive ways to address that,”
Barber said. “We’ve got some
ideas, but we have to work
together. That’s why continu-
ity is so important.”
Chapman said for the com-
munity to grow in positive
ways, it must be affordable for
people to live here.
Developers who receive
breaks must be accountable,
he added. “If you build some-
thing for affordable housing,
you must keep that property
at the price point so you don’t
out-price that market.”
Hood to Coast
In 2015, after high winds
drove runners onto Broadway,
merchants petitioned the City
Council to reschedule or move
the finish of the annual 198-
mile Hood to Coast relay from
Mount Hood to Seaside.
Chapman was among the
voices calling for change.
This year, Barber and city
councilors signed a five-year
deal with Hood to Coast to
keep the race finish in Seaside.
While Chapman said he
thinks the event is “brilliant,”
the organization is not pay-
ing its fair share for city infra-
structure and police.
“In my opinion, Hood to
Coast holds Seaside to the
rails, where we should be
holding Hood to Coast to what
we need as a community,”
Chapman said.
Each runner should be
assessed a fee, Chapman said,
to cover sewer, water, police
and garbage pickup. “I would
say: ‘I don’t want your ser-
vices, but I want you to pay for
services and amenities.’”
Hood to Coast revenues
already pay for city services,
Barber said, and the event
raises hundreds of thousands
of dollars for cancer research.
The Seaside Chamber of
Commerce operates with earn-
ings from the event’s beer and
wine sales, Barber added.
relocate the county jail from
Astoria to the shuttered
North Coast Youth Correc-
tional Facility in Warrenton.
In South County, vot-
ers will decide a $20 mil-
lion Sunset Empire Park and
Recreation District bond for
expansion of the Broadway
aquatic facility.
Barber said he will vote
for the rec district’s bond.
The facility could enhance
services to tourists and peo-
ple living here.
“Health and fitness are
important for people to sup-
port,” Barber said.
While Chapman said he
“loved the concept” of the
expansion, “it’s too soon, too
quick.”
The city’s older popula-
tion fears losing money for
retirement, especially after
the 2016 passage of the $99.7
million bond to relocate
schools, Chapman said.
“Every time you take tax
money and add it on to some-
thing you have to evaluate
its effect,” Chapman said.
“Do I think (Sunset Empire
Park and Recreation District)
would deserve something
like that? Yes. Is the tim-
ing right? No. There are still
questions: pricing, parking,
property lines, and what’s
going to happen with the
middle school property when
that comes up for sale?”
Both the jail and rec bonds
have an uphill battle with
voters, Barber said.
The mayor will vote “yes”
for a new jail, motivated by
safety concerns and the need
to replace the outmoded
facility in Astoria.
“My reluctance is the tax
issue,” he said. “But you
can’t stack criminals on top
of each other. I 100 percent
back up a bond for a facility
Bond measures
Two bond measures are
headed to Seaside voters.
A $20 million bond would
that should have been there
20 years ago.”
Tsunami preparedness
Seaside’s position in the
Cascadia Subduction Zone
leaves the city vulnerable to
an earthquake and tsunami.
Chapman said residents
choose where to live and
“hopefully don’t live in fear.”
In a devastating tsunami,
the likelihood is “there won’t
be a Seaside anyway,” he
said, as the city would be
decimated.
Chapman
questioned
whether to devote funds to
replace aging city bridges
vulnerable to collapse during
an earthquake. Even if
replaced, a bridge may still
be standing after a disaster,
but the road could be gone,
he said.
Chapman sought “com-
mon-sense solutions” to
emergency preparedness and
would seek greater commu-
nication between neighbor-
ing cities in when to sound
tsunami evacuation warn-
ings, he said.
Barber said the first step
to survival is mapping routes
out of the inundation zone.
That could mean replacing
bridges, including Avenue
U, budgeted at about $2 mil-
lion and considered “shovel
ready.”
“That’s about a $2 million
project,” Barber said. “We’re
working to identify those
funds.”
Barber will propose bring-
ing in a professional firm to
develop a strategic plan, he
said. “I want authoritative
assessments of those bridges
to determine which will stand
a 9.0 (earthquake) and which
won’t so we can begin to
educate people, so we have a
process.”
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