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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 2018)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2018 Permits: Permit count doesn’t reflect people who operate illegally Continued from Page 1A A common misconception among buyers is that it is pos- sible to pay for a second home by renting it out as a short-term rental, Brian Olson, the owner of Beachcomber Vacation Homes, said. Even in the best of circumstances, it is difficult for someone to justify the cost of a vacation home with just the income from a rental. “You’re lucky if you can break even in Cannon Beach,” Olson said. With a median home price in Cannon Beach at $550,000 —- almost double that of Sea- side — and rules that prevent more than half of the property owners from renting more than once every two weeks, renting a home as a source of income is a less realistic goal than it may be at other places along the coast, said Alaina Gigui- ere, a real estate agent in Can- non Beach. This reality brings a dif- Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Vacation rentals in Cannon Beach continue to be a source of controversy. ferent type of customer to the market. “Someone who buys a $3 million house … they’re not looking for a nightly rental on that. They just want the option (to rent). But first, they want a home they can use,” Giguiere said. Perception Even if the number of per- mits issued has not signifi- cantly grown, the perception is that more vacation rentals are coming into town. This is in large part due to the fact a per- mit count doesn’t reflect people who operate illegally. Go on Airbnb any day of the week, and more than 300 lodging options will appear for Cannon Beach. With sec- ond homes accounting for about 60 percent of the housing stock, and with only 20 percent of those registered as rentals, many could be operating under the regulatory radar. How to find and track ille- gal rentals has long eluded the city, Barnes said. Following in the footsteps of Gearhart and Seaside, Cannon Beach signed a contract with STR Helper, a program that helps identify illegal vacation rentals, and is in the process of hiring a code enforcement officer. But until then, Barnes said, “There’s a big mystery there.” The perception that vacation rental activity has increased could also be due to the fact more homes are being rented in the offseason, in part because of a growing client base in Portland and better marketing. “We have more advanced bookings than we ever got before. I think we’re learning to fill up the spaces better,” said Linda Beck-Sweeney, the owner of Cannon Beach Vaca- tion Rentals. While permits remained Monument: ‘It’s a true gift to the city’ Continued from Page 1A Scandinavian park will focus solely on immigrants from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. “We want to educate about the five different countries, the traditions we brought with us and the contributions that Scandinavians made to Astoria,” Bowler told the Parks Advisory Board on Wednesday. “But we also hope that everyone will realize the hard- ships that these immigrants went through in order to make a better life for their children and for us,” she continued. “And that the immigrant story is an international experience and that people are still going through that experience.” The story the park wants to tell of these early Scan- dinavian and Nordic immi- grants begins when visitors leave the Riverwalk, cross the Astoria Riverfront Trol- ley tracks and approach the park’s main entrance, symbol- izing the moment when immi- grants left their home coun- tries, said Judi Lampi, the park project chair for the heri- tage association. From there, they arrive in Astoria, a moment repre- sented by a plaza featuring a midsummer pole, the coun- tries’ flags and replicas of steamer trunks to double as seating. An interpretive area will detail the work Scandi- navians did in Astoria and the contributions they made to the region. A winding path will lead west from the main plaza to give visitors time to appreciate the river views, plants and trees and meditate on what they’ve learned. The park will not have tra- ditional playground equip- ment but will include boul- ders for clambering over. Small troll statues will be hid- den across the grounds for children — and adults, said Lampi — to discover. The heritage association tweaked the design of the park several times, integrating a variety of ideas after a com- munity meeting in September where consultants unveiled two different designs and asked for feedback. Construction is expected to cost just under $1 mil- lion. The heritage associa- tion is soliciting donations from individual donors, cor- porations and foundations. Local and regional busi- nesses have already offered to donate some materials and labor, Lampi said. They have already raised money to pay for planning and design work. The heritage association had hoped to construct a mon- ument at Peoples’ Park back in 2015, coinciding with the Astoria Scandinavian Mid- summer Festival’s 50-year anniversary, but the plan stalled amid city concerns about the Park and Recreation Department’s ability to take on maintenance of another park. Now an agreement between the heritage associ- ation and the city spells out the association’s responsibili- ties. The association will be in charge of maintaining, repair- ing and replacing what they build at the park. The mate- rials they plan to use will be durable and easy to clean and care for, and the plants easy to maintain, Lampi said. They plan to remove only three trees. The association is also responsible for paying any utility costs and is partnering with the Rotary Club of Asto- ria to help with maintenance. “It is a true gift to the city,” Bowler said. “We build the park then we give it to the city and then we take care of it.” flat, city lodging tax revenue from vacation rentals jumped from about $269,000 in 2012 to more than $420,000 in 2017. Regulation Whatever the cause, the fear that a growing number of rentals are taking up hous- ing for year-round residents and impacting livability has inspired the city to consider revisions to vacation rental regulations. Potential changes include taking away the ability to rent a unit nightly, which some on the City Council see as a disincen- tive to prospective homebuyers interested in turning their prop- erty into a rental. Whether that action would lead to any tangible reduction in vacation rentals remains to be seen. “I don’t know whether that will have an appreciable dif- ference on the ‘impacts on the community issue,’” Barnes said. Razor clamming on Clatsop County beaches has again been delayed. Colin Murphey The Daily Astorian Clam digs: Majority of clams were between 2 to 3 inches Continued from Page 1A “The consensus was to give the small clams a chance to grow and delay until spring to provide a qual- ity razor clamming experi- ence,” said Matt Hunter, the state shellfish project leader. “During the closure, (state shellfish) staff will continue to monitor the growth of razor clams to ensure they are growing adequately.” During the stock assess- ment, Hunter and other state staff found a majority of the clams were between 2 to 3 inches — too small to be har- vested commercially and not big enough to interest recre- ational clammers. 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