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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (July 13, 2019)
147TH YEAR, NO. 6 WEEKEND EDITION // SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2019 $1.50 Church group buys building for housing Affordable options for downtown By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian Congregants at First Presbyterian Church are purchasing a building down- town with plans to create affordable and workforce housing. The building, on Marine Drive across the street from Vintage Hardware and Sears, houses Mallternative and River- side Vapes on the bottom floor but con- tains 50 studio apartments on the two upper floors. The group will close on the building by the end of the month. Pastor Bill Van Nostran, who spear- headed the effort and negotiated the sale with owner Bernard Bjork, is not sure how many apartments will end up on the market or if some might be converted into larger units. No one has lived in the apartments for years and the building will require a great deal of work to bring it up to code before any apartments can be rented, Van Nos- tran said. But, he added, “There’s all kinds of potential.” Van Nostran did not disclose the price, or discuss who in the church contributed money to purchase the building. The real market value of the property has been listed between $300,000 and just over $500,000 in recent years, according to county records. An advisory committee, whose mem- bers include a mix of congregants and others in the community, such as Todd Johnston of the Northwest Oregon Hous- ing Authority, met for the first time only recently. The committee will be applying for nonprofit status and forming a board to pursue funding. “It won’t solve the housing issue in and of itself, but it’s a start,” said Ron Zilli, a state forester who is volunteering on the advisory committee. It is too early to say exactly how the housing project will unfold, but Van Katie Frankowicz/The Astorian Astoria resident Lacy Brown, a teacher, rents out a downstairs room in her home to tourists. The Airbnb functions as a summer job, she said. Astoria gets better grasp on homestay lodging New license meant to curb illegal rentals By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian F See Building, Page A5 Apartment project near Riverwalk lands city design approval Blend of vacation, workforce housing By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Astorian Plans to build a 66-unit apartment com- plex that would blend workforce hous- ing with vacation rentals passed muster in front of the Astoria Design Review Com- mittee on Thursday. MORE The committee INSIDE approved a proposal Apartments by developer Walt sold to Postlewait to build the California Northpost Apartments couple on property between Page A2 31st and 32nd streets, near Safeway and the Astoria Riverwalk. The project still needs to pass the His- toric Landmarks Commission at a hear- ing on Tuesday. “This is a long-term investment into this community,” Postlewait told the committee. He designed the project with the city’s housing needs in mind, with the goal of providing housing for workers who make $15 to $18 an hour. “That was the seed for this,” he said. “The seed was not, ‘Oh, let’s find some- thing to make a lot of money on.’” See Project, Page A5 Katrina Morrell Gasser People from all over the world stayed in Katrina Morrell Gasser’s Astoria home. She set aside one wall for them to draw pictures and leave messages. or some, it is an annoyance. Others complain it feels like robbery. Fair to say opin- ions are mixed over Asto- ria’s new homestay lodg- ing license. The license, which allows people to rent bed- rooms in their homes to tourists, went into effect this year. City leaders hoped it would do several things: curb illegal rent- als, streamline the process for residents who want to offer legal rentals and make it easier for city staff to track rentals. Like many cities across the country, Astoria has struggled to stay on top of what appears to be a growing number of Airb- nb-type vacation rent- als and operators who are not always following city rules or paying hotel taxes. In June, the city sent out a series of mailers to people with homestay lodging operations, warn- ing them that applications for the city’s new license were due by the end of the month. People who did not have at least an appli- cation in process by the deadline and continue to run their vacation rental face a fine of $1,000 each day they operate out of compliance. As of Tuesday, the city reported 10 licenses in hand and another 14 in process. “The ones we’ve been getting more of the appli- cations from are the ones who had their stuff taken care of in the first place,” City Manager Brett Estes said. City planning staff are using vacation rental advertising sites like Airbnb to contact people they don’t have addresses for and have been able to reach some who didn’t See License, Page A5 Holcom blames county for death of Salvage Chief bill Funding died in Salem By NICOLE BALES The Astorian An entrepreneur who wants to revive the Salvage Chief for disaster response blames Clat- sop County staff for killing a bill that would have provided $1.9 million in state money for the project. Floyd Holcom, speaking during the public comment period at the county commission meeting Wednesday night, said an email circulated by Tiffany Brown, the county’s emergency manager, “torpedoed and sabo- taged” the effort in Salem. Brown had informed county commissioners she was skepti- cal about the project and notified them Senate Bill 678 was pend- ing with a few days remaining in the session. Just before the ses- sion ended in June, Holcom said state Sen. Betsy Johnson, The Salvage Chief was a naval landing vessel converted to perform marine salvage. It aided nearly 300 vessels. D-Scappoose, one of the bill’s sponsors, informed him the bill would not advance. On Wednesday, Holcom told commissioners Brown’s email “essentially killed SB 678.” He said the email was “interwo- ven with personal attacks, false statements, misleading hear- say and omissions of important facts.” Other supporters of the Sal- vage Chief also spoke out. “I’ve been very involved in Senate Bill 678 and I was very sad- dened that Clatsop County threw us under the bus,” said Don Floyd, the chairman of the Sal- vage Chief Foundation. Brown was not immediately available to comment. County commissioners and county staff did not publicly respond to Hol- com’s criticism. The money from Salem would have gone to repair and upgrade the decommissioned World War II-era ship that helped nearly 300 vessels during its service life. Holcom, the owner of Pier 39, purchased the Salvage Chief in 2015 and believes it could be useful after a disaster. But others have questioned whether restor- ing the vessel makes sense and have asked for a more detailed plan for how it would be used in an emergency. “Although we have to start all over, there is no plan or asset available to perform the duties to keep the Columbia River chan- nel clear outside of the Salvage Chief!” Holcom said in a Face- book post.
