A6
THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, ApRIl 30, 2022
Vacation rentals: ‘This is real money that is affecting my life’
Continued from page A1
In Clatsop County, as else-
where on the Oregon Coast,
rentals of 30 or fewer days
have proven to be lucrative
ventures, drawing tourists
and their money to the region.
But residents have alleged
that some visitors do not
respect the neighborhoods or
the surrounding environment.
A
2018
ordinance
addressed health and safety
concerns and marked the first
time the county had sought to
regulate the rentals. Although
rental permits were issued,
the development code still
omitted rentals as an explic-
itly allowed use except in
Arch Cape.
County staff has recom-
mended that the board make
short-term rentals a recog-
nized use in 16 additional
zones: four commercial and
12 residential.
In March, the Planning
Commission, in a split vote,
offered a different recom-
mendation: allow vacation
rentals only in the four com-
mercial zones and two multi-
family residential zones, plus
Arch Cape — a move that
would effectively ban rent-
als in the other 10 residential
zones.
Planning commissioners
who voted in favor argued
that most residential zones
are inappropriate settings for
commercial enterprises.
In addition, the Planning
Commission recommended
that vacation rentals be per-
mitted only as a conditional
use, which requires a public
notice and a public hearing.
The Planning Commis-
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Vacation rentals have posed problems for some neighborhoods.
sion’s approach would elim-
inate more than half of the
short-term rentals operat-
ing in unincorporated areas
as existing permits can’t get
renewed. County staff esti-
mates that the loss would cost
the county about half a mil-
lion dollars in lodging taxes.
The board originally
planned to decide the issue
this month. At the April 13
meeting, Thompson and
Commissioner Pamela Wev
said they would support a
moratorium extension while
the county gathers data on a
key question: How does the
vacation rental industry affect
the local housing market in
terms of prices and the avail-
ability of homes?
This data will be presented
at a work session on May 18,
Gail Henrikson, the coun-
ty’s community development
director, said.
Commissioner
Court-
ney Bangs voted in favor of
a moratorium extension, but
did so, she said, to honor
her colleagues’ request for
more information. She wants
to finish the vacation rental
conversation — which has
played out in more than 20
Wastewater: ‘It’s been a very difficult pivot’
Continued from page A1
Craft beer boom
The problem Astoria is
facing is not unique.
Craft beer has boomed
across the country, forc-
ing cities and breweries to
figure out how to address
the impact on municipal
treatment systems. Down
the coast from Astoria, for
example, Newport created
an industrial pretreatment
program and levied fines
against Rogue Ales for not
meeting limits.
Between the industrial
pretreatment program and
another $5 million project
to expand capacity, Asto-
ria expects the treatment
lagoons to last until 2045.
The project will turn a
lagoon into a sludge stor-
age pond with baffles and
a new headworks to filter
out grit and other solids.
The city recently received
nearly $5 million in coro-
navirus relief funds to com-
plete the project.
If nothing were done to
address the industrial waste
from breweries, the city
said it is possible a mechan-
ically driven plant would
be necessary within five
years, which is estimated
to cost between $50 million
and $70 million.
City engineers say Asto-
ria is well suited for treat-
ment lagoons, and that a
mechanical plant is not a
viable option. Even with a
mechanical plant, the city
said it would still need an
industrial pretreatment pro-
gram, which is common in
other municipalities.
Astoria has never had
significant industrial users
on the treatment system
before Fort George and
Buoy Beer. Requests from
seafood processors to dis-
charge into the system
have been denied, which
has forced the businesses
to work with the state
Department of Environ-
mental Quality to treat their
own waste and discharge it
directly into the river.
The city issued Fort
George and Buoy Beer
industrial discharge permits
ahead of establishing the
program so they could keep
up with expansions while
working toward a solu-
tion. The permits allowed
the breweries to discharge
a higher level of solids than
previously agreed upon.
Fort George and Buoy
Beer jointly hired John
‘I AM CONCERNEd BECAuSE
WITHOuT CApACITy upGRAdES,
yOu’RE JuST IN A SpOT WHERE
THE FERMENTATION SECTOR
CANNOT GROW IN ASTORIA. IT
WIll BE IMpOSSIBlE.
I dON’T THINK pEOplE ARE
GOING TO WANT TO START
BuSINESSES IN ASTORIA IF
THEy CAN’T GROW THEM.’
Chris Nemlowill | owner of Fort George Brewery
Mercer, a brewery waste-
water consultant, which
led to developing a
side-streaming
system,
which removes the heaviest
effluent before the waste-
water is discharged into the
city’s system.
Fort George puts the
heavy effluent into tanks
that are taken to local farms
for supplemental cattle feed
most of the year. The farms
cannot take the effluent
during the winter, which
leaves the brewery needing
to find another option for a
few months a year.
“It’s been a very difficult
pivot,” Chris Nemlowill,
the owner of Fort George
Brewery, told The Astorian,
adding that the process and
logistics have been costly
and time-consuming.
He said the lagoons are
outdated infrastructure, and
that he would like to see
capacity upgrades that can
accommodate growth in the
city.
“I do think it’s really
important that we take this
opportunity to look at any
additional capacity we
could gain with our cur-
rent wastewater treatment
plant,” he said. “I am con-
cerned because without
capacity upgrades, you’re
just in a spot where the fer-
mentation sector cannot
grow in Astoria.
“It will be impossible.
I don’t think people are
going to want to start busi-
nesses in Astoria if they
can’t grow them.”
Nemlowill
said
he
would like to come back
to the table before the city
moves forward with the
ordinance.
Nemlowill and David
Kroening, the president and
general manager of Buoy
Beer, said they are not advo-
cating for a new mechani-
cal plant, but do want to see
more creative solutions to
increase capacity.
“I don’t know if we’ve
solved or if we have enough
information yet, if every-
thing we’re doing now is
going to solve the issue,”
Kroening said during a City
Council meeting in April.
“What other changes might
be coming? Are we invest-
ing money in now and then
we get into another issue in
three years where we’re not
low enough, and it comes
down that we need to spend
multimillion dollars at that
point? That’s going to be a
challenge that I’m not sure
how we will solve it if we
get to that.”
City engineers have
acknowledged the amount
of
infrastructure
Fort
George and Buoy Beer have
contributed to improve
treatment capacity.
“We have seen it hands-
down affect the wastewa-
ter treatment plant in a pos-
itive way,” Cindy Moore,
the assistant city engineer,
said. “There’s this fine-tun-
ing of the difficulty asso-
ciated with the wintertime
discharge.”
Harrington said there
is nothing that could have
been done or can be done to
the treatment plant that will
allow the breweries to con-
tinue discharging as they
have been in recent years.
“Industry usually deals
with their waste before
it gets discharged,” Har-
rington said, adding that
treating at the source is
most economical and that
on-site treatment is com-
mon for larger breweries.
New breweries
Obelisk Beer Co., a
brewery planning to open
in Astoria this year, is one
of the first new brewer-
ies to navigate the new
regulations.
When Dave Coyne
and Nathan Lampson,
owners of Obelisk Beer,
approached the city for a
building permit, they were
told they would first need
to have a plan in place to
pretreat wastewater on-site
to a level consistent with
a residence before it goes
into the city’s treatment
lagoons.
For Coyne and Lamp-
son, who are planning
on opening a taproom on
Bond Street, that meant
implementing a biological
treatment system to treat
wastewater.
Lampson has advocated
for some capacity being
allocated for new busi-
nesses, saying it could keep
other businesses from com-
ing to Astoria.
“A part of it is com-
forting because we know
that with the path where
we have our own biolog-
ical treatment, we’re not
as beholden to changes in
effluent capacity,” Lamp-
son told The Astorian. “But
the flip is that we’re start-
ing a pretty small project
and the costs associated
with the improvement is
pretty high.
“I’m just hoping that for
other small projects, that
doesn’t prevent them from
existing.”
public meetings since late
2019 — by the end of the fis-
cal year in June.
Chris Delong, who lives
in the Astoria area, said on
Wednesday that he started
paying his mortgage on a
vacation rental in July. He
applied for a permit in Octo-
ber, not realizing a morato-
rium was in effect.
“I’ve been paying on that
mortgage since, with all of
my investment sitting there,
and I think it’s really on you
guys to put this to bed …,”
he told the board. “This is
real money to me. This isn’t
throwaway money. This
is not disposable income.
This is not me owning a big
yacht or anything. This is real
money that is affecting my
life.”
Book: ‘It’s so important that
kids experience nature and
get outside and have fun’
Continued from page A1
“The positive response
and feedback has just been
really nice. A lot of my
friends have little kids who
are just in the perfect age
range for the book. So they
have just loved it. Every lit-
tle kid loves dogs and parks
and nature,” she said.
Taylor’s love of national
parks began during family
road trips from her home
state of Missouri, which she
said are some of her best
childhood memories.
“It totally made sense
just to get into working with
the National Park Service
and helping to facilitate that
experience for other fami-
lies, and other kids. It’s so
much fun, like one of the
best jobs ever,” she said.
After college, Tay-
lor took a seasonal job at
Grand Teton National Park
and spent the next 12 years
working at Yellowstone,
Glacier and Yosemite.
She rescued K-So as a
puppy from a Catahoula
leopard dog shelter while
working at Yosemite in
2013. They have been hik-
ing partners ever since.
K-So’s name is a short-
ening of ‘OK, so,’ a phrase
Taylor and her husband
repeated so much when
choosing a name that the
puppy began to respond to
it. The dog is covered in
calico spots, and has one
brown and one blue eye.
“She’s very unique look-
ing. People always com-
mented on her and kids
always wanted to pet her,”
Taylor said. “So it kind of
became just a fun weekend
event to take K-So up to the
park and just walk around
with her and to answer peo-
ple’s questions about the
park.”
Taylor worked at Yosem-
ite until 2019, then moved
to Astoria where she works
remotely as a program man-
ager for the National Park
Service.
K-So is now 9 years old,
but still an avid hiker. Tay-
lor has been writing more
poems about her adven-
tures and hopes to publish a
sequel.
“I think it’s so important
that kids experience nature
and get outside and have fun,
and enjoy it at an early age. I
think that bringing that into
kids homes through K-So is
something that has always
been really important to me,
and developing the next gen-
eration of stewards of our
public land,” she said.