The daily Astorian., December 13, 2018, Page A7, Image 26

A7
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2018
Port: ‘You need Hotel: Most recent denial was the
to be respectful result of a 2-2 split vote on new design
and responsive
to tenants’
Continued from Page A1
Continued from Page A1
The credibility issue
relates to Knight’s han-
dling of the Astoria River-
walk Inn lawsuit and the
Port’s treatment of tenants,
Rohne said.
A jury in last year’s trial
over the lease of the Riv-
erwalk Inn found Knight
made fraudulent statements
regarding the hotel to a pro-
spective operator, while a
judge called Knight’s tes-
timony in the lawsuit not
“particularly credible.”
The Port has also faced
criticism by tenants over
communication. For exam-
ple, Dan Travers, a Life
Flight Network base man-
ager, said he had been mis-
led by Knight in negotia-
tions on a new hangar. It
was recently revealed that
longtime Port tenant Berg-
erson Construction had
been asked to move off
of Pier 3 to accommodate
more logs despite wanting
to stay . Boat owners at the
East Mooring Basin have
complained about the lack
of a warning before the Port
closed the causeway at the
marina .
“Ultimately the Port
is like a big landlord, and
you need to be respect-
ful and responsive to ten-
ants,” Rohne said of his
evaluation.
Rohne
wrote
that
Knight also needs to bet-
ter focus on details, man-
age expectations and scruti-
nize the practicality of new
ideas. “An example of this
would be giving the public
the impression that a pro-
posed data center is a win
from the Port, when it may
be premature to do so, ” he
said.
Knight helped recruit
a data center proposed by
developer Mark Cox at
Clatsop County’s North
Coast Business Park as a
new opportunity for the
Port to manage fi ber-op-
tic lines. But after secur-
ing county approval in
August to buy 67 acres,
Cox has still not closed on
the property.
It’s time for a change
Hunsinger, a persistent
critic of Knight , gave him a
zero out of fi ve on his over-
all evaluation and a one
on all metrics of his per-
formance. “It’s time for a
change,” he wrote in his
only comment .
Hunsinger has taken
issue with nearly every
aspect of Knight’s man-
agement, including his
push to leave unprofi table
industrial properties such
as North Tongue Point
and the Skipanon Penin-
sula. Hunsinger has also
knocked Knight for a lack
of transparency over issues
such as how the Port is pay-
ing for a new stormwater
treatment system.
Spence, a stalwart sup-
porter of Knight’s, said
he has more interaction
with the executive direc-
tor than other commission-
ers and more understanding
of his role, being a former
city manager and county
administrator. Knight is
like a whirling dervish,
constantly on the move,
attending meetings and try-
ing to make new deals for
the Port, Spence said.
“Some of the work he’s
doing has not become pub-
lic, but there are projects
that will in the long run
benefi t the Port and the
whole region,” he said.
Spence said he was
shocked by Rohne’s review
of Knight and has asked
for the two to meet. As for
Hunsinger, Spence does
not think there is any way
for his relationship with
Knight to be salvaged.
“His position has just
been consistent that he
wants to get rid of Mr.
Knight,” Spence said .
Knight declined to com-
ment on the performance
evaluation directly, but
said he felt it was the right
time to make commissioner
opinions of him public. The
Port has faced a lot of tough
issues recently, from crum-
bling infrastructure to the
Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency not pro-
viding much support to
repair 2015 storm damage ,
he said.
“Fundamentally,
I’m
proud of the work I’ve
done,” Knight said. “I know
we’re going through some
diffi cult, diffi cult issues.”
The proposal to build the
hotel at the base of Second
Street has gone in front of
the city multiple times since
March. City boards shot
the proposal down three
times. Hollander Hospital-
ity appealed each denial to
the City Council and pre-
sented an alternative design
in an effort to push the proj-
ect through.
Size and massing
The most recent denial
by the
Design Review
Committee was the result of
a split 2-2 vote on the new
design. In an appeal to the
City Council, Hollander
Hospitality argued the com-
mittee had misapplied city
standards dealing with size
and massing.
Hotels are an outright use
in the zone where the devel-
oper wants to build, but the
area also falls under Bridge
Vista, a section of the city’s
Riverfront Vision Plan that
outlines design standards
and criteria intended to pre-
serve views of the Colum-
bia River and Astoria’s
character.
While Hollander’s pro-
posal may not meet the
desires expressed for Bridge
Vista, the new hotel would
not be out of scale with
nearby buildings, Jones
maintained. If the commu-
nity does not want four-
story buildings in Bridge
Vista, then there needs to
be a code amendment, he
said, a statement Brownson
echoed.
“(The hotel) is going
to make a difference,”
Brownson said. “It’s going
to change the landscape.
Every building will. But I
think that in this case the
code is clear as far as height
and size and setbacks and
that it’s allowed and there
was public input and a lot
of discussion that went into
this code … and that’s what
should be allowed.
“Now if we don’t like
it, it’s a little bit too late to
make the change today.”
The wording may be
muddled, but the intent
of the code when it was
adopted is clear, countered
Nemlowill and Price, who,
with LaMear, were on the
City Council when the com-
munity established guide-
lines for Bridge Vista . The
two councilors echoed con-
cerns expressed by some
members of the Design
Hollander Hospitality
A developer gets the green light for a new hotel along
the river in Astoria.
Review Committee that the
large hotel was not compat-
ible in terms of mass and
scale.
“How the project got this
far is really not clear to me,”
Price said.
The new hotel will have
a major impact on people’s
views of the river and will
stick out compared with
other buildings in the area,
she said, two issues the
guidelines in Bridge Vista
were explicitly drafted to
address.
But Brownson argued
it was not clear which
standards applied to new
construction and which
applied to existing build-
ings, an argument made by
Hollander.
“We’re getting really
bogged down with what a
word means and numbers
but, really, think about it,”
Nemlowill said. “Why did
the city ever embark on
the Riverfront Vision Plan?
It wasn’t because of a fear
of development that was
already here. It was a fear
of waterfront development
that could come.”
At the time, there were
multiple condominium proj-
ects proposed or in develop-
ment, she and Price noted.
“The idea that this only
applies to existing construc-
tion is absolutely ludicrous,”
Nemlowill concluded.
Nemlowill
suggested
allowing the project at a
reduced height of 35 feet,
but received no support
from the rest of the coun-
cil. Members of the Design
Review Committee who
ultimately voted against the
project had made a similar
suggestion, pitching it as a
compromise to address con-
cerns about the scale of the
new building.
Urban Core
The city is in the mid-
dle of drafting code for
the fi nal piece of the Riv-
erfront Vision Plan, the
Urban Core, which includes
the downtown waterfront
area from Second Street to
16th Street. On Wednesday,
Brownson said the discus-
sion around the hotel will
inform how he thinks the
city should approach work
on the Urban Core.
“Because we want to get
it right,” he said.
After the meeting, Jones
said he plans to bring up
code issues with the new
council that will take over
in January. Nemlowill and
Price’s seats will be fi lled
by newcomers Roger Rocka
and Joan Herman, while
Jones will take over as
mayor.
Jones hopes the new
council
will
consider
amendments to the develop-
ment code, “clarifying both
intent and interpretation of
guidelines where appro-
priate as well as revisiting
height standards in (Bridge
Vista).”
“Urban Core code lan-
guage
recommendations
will benefi t from lessons
learned about the insuffi -
cient specifi city in the areas
of (Bridge Vista) code lan-
guage considered tonight,”
he added.
But people who spoke
against the hotel project
said the decision the City
Council made Wednesday
will have ramifi cations that
stretch beyond the Urban
Core.
“It’s going to be hard to
make a decision not to allow
that in some other area
when you’ve allowed it in
this one,” said Glen Boring,
who lives in the Columbia
House condos near where
the new hotel will be built.
Sarah Jane Bardy, a
member of the Design
Review Committee, had
voted against the new hotel,
arguing that it did not meet
city requirements for new
development in Bridge
Vista and was out of scale.
“I’d like to make a kind
of silly suggestion,” she
said during a public com-
ment period at the end of
the meeting Wednesday.
She proposed setting a
park bench in front of the
hotel.
“And the councilors who
voted in favor of it could
put their names on it so that
we never forget who voted
in favor of it and started this
slippery slope.”
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