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.
The state worried about
clams being wasted if dig-
gers, inadvertently or on pur-
pose, discarded the smaller
clams in pursuit of larger
clams.
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