January 27, 2017 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 9A
Affordable housing wanted, but who will pay?
By Lyra Fontaine
For Cannon Beach Gazette
Affordable housing and how
to pay for it was the topic of a
Tuesday, Jan. 10, City Council
work session.
With a report offering rec-
ommendations, council mem-
bers discussed ways to imple-
ment recommendations from
the affordable housing task
force, including a tax on new
development to provide money
for workforce housing.
Changes in short-term rental
rules and placing three to eight
Park Model homes in the city’s
RV Resort are also among con-
siderations.
With the goal of encourag-
ing and facilitating the creation
of long-term affordable rental
housing, the city plans to place
from three to eight park homes
in the Cannon Beach RV Re-
sort. The homes would cost
from $30,000 to $60,000. In-
stallation costs are estimated at
$10,000.
City Planner Mark Barnes
said a management company
would collect rents, advertise
vacancies, screen tenants and
enforce lease requirements for
the city. Potential management
SUBMITTED PHOTO
The city will place park model homes at the city-owned Cannon Beach RV Resort.
could be the current RV Resort
manager Escape Lodging or the
Northwest Oregon Housing Au-
thority.
The park homes would take
up RV spaces, but Barnes said
the city would not lose much
revenue.
“If you do a handful of spac-
es in a 100-space RV Park, this
only has an effect on revenue
when the park is full,” Barnes
said.
Councilor Brandon Ogilvie
said he would like to see more
information about city revenue
from the RV Resort in a future
meeting.
Councilor George Vetter said
some citizens have expressed
concern about how bringing in
these park model homes could
alter the RV Resort’s character.
“I think it’s a real issue, but I
think we can at least to some ex-
tent address that,” Barnes said.
Staff recommends that a car-
port and storage shed, approved
by the design review board, be
provided with each unit to re-
duce storage and clutter. The
units would also be next to each
other for utility ease and to min-
imize the impact on the rest of
the RV Resort, Barnes said.
Taxes, fee waivers
considered
To provide incentives for
developers to provide afford-
able housing options, the city is
reviewing fees and systems de-
velopment charges for sanitary
sewer, water and storm drainage.
The charges amount to about
$5,000 for a typical single-fami-
ly residence.
To limit the growth of short-
term rentals and make more
homes available for long-term
leases, the council could con-
sider caps on permits, neighbor-
hood-specific regulations and
more aggressive enforcement.
Staff could draft ordinance
amendments to reduce or ex-
empt fees on qualifying rental
housing development, such as
affordable long-term rentals.
The council could also con-
sider a construction excise tax.
The tax, authorized by the Or-
egon Legislature last year, is a
one-time fee that can be imposed
on new residential and commer-
cial building permits to help
fund affordable housing initia-
tives. The tax is capped at 1 per-
cent for residential construction.
“The construction excise tax
is something that might gen-
erate a significant amount of
money to pay for one of these
things,” Barnes said. “The one
thing it clearly can pay for is the
systems development charges
waivers or partial waivers.”
Imposing the tax would re-
quire an ordinance amendment
and budgetary changes. If the
ordinance is ready for adoption
after public hearings, the ordi-
nance could take effect July 1.
City Councilor George Vet-
ter expressed concerns about
“unfairly targeting” people
who want to build homes in
the community.
The tax could apply to resi-
dential developments that start
at certain amounts so it does
not affect potential affordable
housing development.
For a $700,000 home, a
1-percent tax of $7,000 would
likely not be an issue, Kucera
said.
“If you put a minimum in
there, it’s arguable that you ar-
en’t affecting the affordable
housing that’s being built at
all with this tax,” Kucera said.
“You’re really affecting what
are essentially vacation homes.”
“In the big scheme of how
much it costs to build a house,
it’s small,” Barnes said after the
meeting.
Barnes said the Astoria
school district imposes a con-
struction excise tax but it is less
than one percent and therefore
does not have a major impact.
Widow lays blame for foreclosure Cannon Beach
residents join the
of house on Trump nominee
Cannon Beach
woman lost her
home after her
husband died
inee “made millions of dollars
by foreclosing on people’s
homes.”
Unflattering depiction
By Erick Bengel
EO Media Group
A Cannon Beach widow,
who lost her home to foreclo-
sure shortly after her husband
died, is the subject of a TV ad
opposing President-elect Don-
ald Trump’s choice for Trea-
sury secretary.
Lisa Fraser’s husband, John,
died last winter after a long
battle with cancer. She said
OneWest — the bank Steven
Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee,
led as chairman and CEO from
2009 to 2015 — foreclosed
on the home where the couple
lived for almost 25 years.
As Lisa Fraser explains in
the somber 30-second spot:
“We did everything the bank
asked. They lied to us and took
our home anyway. John spent
his last days terrified I’d be
homeless. And then they kicked
me out right after the funeral.”
The commercial — funded
and produced by progressive
organizations — premiered
Wednesday and targeted Re-
publican senators in Arizona,
Iowa and Nevada who may
be persuaded not to support
Mnuchin.
Mnuchin’s
confirmation
hearing begins today before
the Senate Finance Committee.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Ore-
gon, the ranking Democrat on
the committee, said in a state-
ment that “our staff is continu-
ing to carefully and thoroughly
vet Mr. Mnuchin to ensure
that he will put the interests
of working families before his
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN AND LISA FRASER
John Fraser enjoys one of his
plastic, squeaking pickles
in this photo from the early
1990s. His widow says a bank
foreclosure caused undue
stress near the end of his life.
own. I look forward to asking
tough questions about his histo-
ry of predatory lending and his
plans to create prosperity for all
Americans, not just the ones at
the very top.”
Democrats have brand-
ed Mnuchin the “Foreclosure
King” because, during his ten-
ure at OneWest, the California
bank forced thousands of peo-
ple out of their homes. Pros-
ecutors suspected the bank of
ethically and legally dubious
practices.
Mnuchin, a former Gold-
man Sachs executive, hedge-
fund manager and movie fi-
nancier, had sold OneWest to
CIT Group by the time Fraser
lost her home but served on the
CIT Group board until stepping
down after his nomination.
“Lisa Fraser’s story is just
one of 36,000 across the coun-
try,” said Kaitlin Sweeney,
press secretary at the Progres-
sive Change Campaign Com-
mittee, one of the organizations
behind the ad.
Calling Mnuchin “the post-
er child for how Trump is be-
traying America’s working
families, including his own
voters,” Sweeney said the nom-
Mnuchin has disputed this
unflattering depiction, say-
ing his business also modified
loans and helped many people
stay in their homes. “In the
press it has been said that I
ran a ‘foreclosure machine,’”
according to a Politico report
on his prepared statement for
the Senate Finance Commit-
tee. “This is not true. On the
contrary, I was committed to
loan modifications intended to
stop foreclosures. I ran a ‘Loan
Modification Machine.’”
Unfortunately, Lisa Fraser
was not one of these home-
owners. EO Media Group was
unable to independently verify
the circumstances surrounding
the foreclosure, but Fraser’s
friends did set up a GoFundMe
account soon after John’s death
that described her financial
struggle and her need to move.
“They tortured us with end-
less phone calls, endless re-
quests for documents,” she said
in an interview.
As John’s condition wors-
ened, she said she tried to
mislead her husband about the
seriousness of their situation so
he would not worry. It didn’t
work.
“He did know I was going
to lose the house, and he was
extremely upset about it,” she
said.
The final years of John’s
life, she said, should have been
spent going on picnics and
taking drives along the beach
— activities he could still phys-
ically do.
“But I couldn’t do that, be-
cause I was so stressed out and
trying to save the house, so I
frequently would be short with
him,” she said. “And this is
the part that kills me the most:
Those last couple years, it
should have been all about me
and John and nothing else.
“And, as it turned out, we
had a third interloper in the
form of Steve Mnuchin.”
‘A very emotional story’
Fraser reached out to Sen-
ate Democrats who had solic-
ited stories from homeowners
who had dealt with OneWest.
The move brought her and the
Progressive Change Campaign
Committee together.
“What really struck us
the most about Lisa was just
how much she spoke from the
heart,” Sweeney said. “I mean,
what she went through, the fact
that she had to fight to allow
her husband to die in his own
home, the fact that they fore-
closed on her very soon after
the funeral — it’s a very emo-
tional story. It’s a very powerful
story, and we’re really hoping
lots of people see it.”
“It’s embarrassing to lose
your frickin’ house,” Fraser
said, “so I didn’t talk about it
at all until the very end, when it
was imminent.”
Nearly one year removed
from her husband’s death, Fras-
er, 61, now rents a cabin in mid-
town Cannon Beach. She said
she will, in the end, be OK. She
still has Once Upon a Breeze,
the kite shop she and John co-
owned.
“I just am clinging to the
shop,” she said. “I lost John
— the biggest thing — and the
house. I mean, it’s really rather
stunning when you think back
on it.”
• Watch the ad: https://
w w w. y o u t u b e . c o m / w a t
ch?v=1R-E0Cxhj2Q
Women’s March
March from Page 1A
the half-mile route through
downtown, organizers with
neon vests guided march-
ers on the designated course
and made sure they followed
traffic laws like staying on
sidewalks and obeying streets
lights.
Demonstrators occasion-
ally broke out in chants. A few
even brought whistles and
bongos to energize the crowd.
Anne and Garrett Thiel-
king, a married couple from
the Portland area, had planned
a weekend getaway to Astoria
for months. But after Trump
was elected, they said they
had to take time out of their
vacation. They said they had
participated in demonstra-
tions in large cities before and
were surprised by Saturday’s
turnout.
“This is a lot more or-
derly,” Anne Thielking said.
“I’ve been at protests where
people throw stuff at you
or start heckling and record
you.”
Issues including abortion,
civil rights and race relations
were among those inspiring
the protest. “Birth control was
often illegal and abortion was
a back alley or coat hanger
procedure,” Amos said. “
In the 1950s women were
second-class citizens who
had little impact on politics.
Women of any racial minori-
ty were worse off than white
women until Rosa Parks
stayed stuck in her seat on
the bus that got us to where
we are today. No, Donald
Trump, we will not go back
to the 1950s where, in your
words, ‘we were doing pretty
much what we wanted to do,”
because that statement only
applied to white men.”
The march did not attract
many
counterdemonstra-
tors, but a number of drivers
honked in support as they
drove by. Jessi Anderson, a
manager at the Astoria Cof-
feehouse & Bistro, was wait-
ing for a friend to grab a cup
of coffee as he looked out at
the marchers.
“I’ve just been giving
people hugs,” Anderson said.
“There’s not a lot of hate,
which I think is fantastic.”
“To see the power of the
feminine half of the popu-
lation reveal itself with the
support of some good men
gives me hope,” added Diane
Amos.
Color printmaking workshop
Feb. 3-4 with Angela Purviance
Creative Coast, a pro-
gram of Cannon Beach Arts
Association, hosts a print-
making workshop by Ange-
la Purviance. This two-day
workshop takes place Feb.
3 and Feb. 4, from 10 a.m.
to 3 p.m. each day with an
hour lunch break in Suite
25, second floor, Sandpiper
Square.
Registration required at
cannonbeacharts.org or by
calling 503-436-4426.
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