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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 2017)
6A • September 15, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com Housing, homelessness drive Gearhart concerns City to enter into county agreement By R.J. Marx Seaside Signal In Gearhart, a city where the median home price reaches $424,000, housing is- sues take center stage. Before the Wednesday, Sept. 6, City Council meeting was over, the council had taken in a request for funding from Helping Hands Re-entry and resolved to enter into an agreement with the county and other cities on a $100,000 housing study. In June, County Manager Cameron Moore suggested Gearhart partner with other cities to learn more about housing issues. A similar six-month study by Til- lamook County identified specific data about the area’s housing market and pos- sible solutions. The Clatsop County agreement rec- ognizes the “lack of housing options is creating barriers to continued economic growth.” Businesses are struggling to retain and attract employees because they cannot find housing or cannot afford the housing that might be available, according to the agreement. Cannon Beach, Seaside, Warrenton, Astoria and Gear- hart have been asked to provide $10,000 toward the estimated $100,000 cost of the project. R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL The county will Alan Evans, CEO pledge $50,000. and founder of According to Helping Hands the agreement, the Re-entry, address- county will hire a es the Gearhart consultant to assist City Council. in understanding the type, size, loca- tion and price of housing needed to meet the current and future needs of county residents, along with market forces, reg- ulations and local barriers that impact housing development. “This is a good opportunity for part- nership with the county and cities of Clat- sop County,” City Administrator Chad Sweet wrote in a staff report. City Attorney Peter Watts said there is a general consensus of a housing emer- gency in the county, and growing pressure for cities to conduct these types of studies. Cost savings will come from teaming with the county, rather than preparing an independent study, he added. Funding for the housing study part- nership will come from the city’s plan- ning fund, Sweet said. The fund contains $14,950. Mayor Matt Brown and City Council- ors Paulina Cockrum, Dan Jesse and Sue Lorain voted to support the partnership. Councilor Kerry Smith was absent. Request for shelter funds In a public comment period before the regular meeting, Alan Evans, chief executive officer and founder of Helping Hands, requested support for his organi- zation. Helping Hands provides shelter and re-entry services through 11 facilities with 190 beds a night in four counties. In Seaside, Helping Hands provides up to 60 beds a night. “All the cities provide assistance and we’ve always wondered how come Gear- hart hasn’t offered us an opportunity to apply,” Evans said. “I had a conversa- tion with somebody who said, ‘Have you asked?’ The answer is ‘No, I haven’t.’” Evans cited an increase in need and a housing crisis “like we’ve never seen be- fore in the last year.” “We’ve had a increase of 6 percent in the last year in children needing services. In our community,” he said. “We had an 18 percent increase in the elderly needing assistance in this community. And a 35 percent increase in people needing ser- vices in the last two years.” Evans delivered a letter and annual re- port to councilors, who agreed to consider the request at a future budget session. Concerns include watershed, project cost Campus from Page 1A According to a report de- livered by the district consul- tant, Winterbrook Planning, the reason for the amendment and related comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance changes is to provide for the safety of district students and staff by moving its three remaining outdated schools — Seaside High School, Broadway Middle School and Gearhart Elementary School — out of the tsunami inunda- tion zone to relatively flat and stable ground. “The decision to move the schools to higher ground is supported by major seis- mic events, state programs and hazard studies over the past two decades,” consultant Greg Winterowd wrote. The proposal would change the county forest land to a new zoning designation, institutional campus. An ad- ditional 40 acres of land al- ready within the city would be rezoned from low-density residential to institutional campus. A long road In 2010, after the district determined there were no suitable sites for a new school campus within the Seaside urban growth boundary, the City Council voted to amend the comprehensive plan to include siting criteria for schools and hospitals. Four Oregon high schools sit within the tsunami inun- dation zone, three of them in the Seaside School District, former Superintendent Doug Dougherty said. The fourth is look at what the immediate impact of the school will be.” More detailed site plans showing buildings, athletic fields and parking will be pro- vided at that time. SUBMITTED PHOTO Proposed areas to be rezoned. Part of the property is now county forest land. Neah-Kah-Nie High School in Rockaway Beach. A bond to finance a new Seaside campus failed in 2013, but a second vote last November was approved by voters by a 2-1 margin. Visitors at Monday night’s public hearing pointed to ad- vantages of the new campus, including exposure to a natu- ral environment and forested areas. “Our community is ex- tremely fortunate to live in an area where there are so many outdoor learning opportuni- ties, and this campus is ideally situated to maximize contact with the outdoors,” Seaside School District Business Manager Justine Hill said. Seaside High School Prin- cipal Jeff Roberts said the district has “come up with a solution that best meets com- munity needs as expressed in the Seaside zoning ordi- nance.” Public concerns Concerns included preserv- ing the water quality of nearby streams and disposition of the district’s old school buildings. Seaside resident John Dun- zer said the district’s money would be better spent on fix- ing bridges and upgrading the city’s existing school facil- ities. He said public impact was lacking and district cost estimates were inaccurate. Patrick Wingard of the state’s Department of Land Conservation and Develop- ment sought additional lim- itations on the use of vacated school sites. Planning Commissioner Bill Carpenter asked council- ors to consider traffic impacts on Spruce Drive and Wahan- na, and emergency access to the campus. “A lot of it will come down to the development applica- tion,” transportation consultant Will Farley said. “They will Housing from Page 1A Development fees The city reviewed a pro- posal from the FCS Group to review the city’s water, waste- water and parks system devel- CEDR, in partnership with the Astoria, Jewell, Knappa, Seaside and War- renton School Districts, Clatsop Community Col- lege, the Northwest Region- al Education Service District and Hampton Warrenton Mill announce a communi- ty-based internship program for Clatsop County students that will be kicked off with an all-day training day for businesses that have signed up, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the South County Center of Clatsop Community Col- lege and CEDR in Seaside. The workshop will be conducted by the McMin- nville WORKS Summer Internship Program, which was developed by the Mc- Minnville Economic De- velopment Partnership, and has had tremendous success bringing students in for a nine-week paid internship program with key business- es in the community. The McMinnville WORKS Internship Pro- gram is designed by indus- try and community partners committed to making an easy “plug and play” in- ternship program. The part- nership manages the overall program which includes marketing internships at a variety of companies under one application process. The internship is nine weeks, di- rect hire, paid, and project based. The goals include connecting companies to the emerging talent pool and creating a profession- al employment experience for the interns. The results are telling-companies are learning about the younger workforce, real world career exploration is occurring, and jobs are being created and filled. Internship goals and ex- pected outcomes for the in- tern are community building, leading to a pathway of eco- nomic development through industry engagement, make work visible within the com- munity, learn application and interview processes, learn- ing how to work, develop work ethic, recognize trans- ferrable skills, build resume, and prepare interns to enter workforce with concrete ca- reer readiness and technical skills. To register for the work- shop, or to get more details, contact us at sbdc@clatsop- cc.edu or call 503-338-2402. DINING on the NORTH COAST A ‘tight partnership’ In discussion, Councilor Steve Wright said the will of the voters who approved the measure should be considered. The expansion of the urban growth boundary to accom- modate the campus also meets city goals, he said. “I’m very much in support of this,” Mayor Jay Barber said. “This is the first step. This is not annexation. Water, sewer — all those things have to be determined. Without this, we can’t go ahead and address these things.” Barber, along with coun- cilors Dana Phillips, Randy Frank, Seth Morrisey, Tom Horning, Tita Montero and Steve Wright, voted to ap- prove the district’s request. The county must still re- view the zoning changes and amend its comprehensive plan to recognize the new zone. The adopted amendments will be incorporated into formal changes to the com- prehensive plan, zoning ordi- nances and zoning map. Annexation of the 49 acres will follow approval of the county and adoption of the city’s administrative rules. “We’ve already been working in tight partnership with the city,” Dougherty said after the meeting. “We’ll be even closer now in identify- ing everything that needs to be done, with all the facility components.” Seaside studies impediments to affordable housing “We think that the study will provide a great deal of information for the governing bodies to be able to adequate- ly analyze the issues we face as far as workforce housing is concerned in Clatsop Coun- ty,” City Manager Mark Win- stanley said Monday. “It’s not an issue for individual cities, it is an issue for all of the ar- eas of Clatsop County.” He said a study that em- braces the entire county “would be entirely appropri- ate.” “We think this would be a very good way to take a look at this problem,” Winstanley said. “I think $10,000 is a bar- gain for that,” Mayor Jay Bar- ber said. Internship workshop at CEDR in Seaside DANNY MILLER/EO MEDIA GROUP Seaside is taking steps to address a housing shortage. opment charges. According to Winstanley, FCS Group last reviewed and updated the system develop- ment charges in 2008. System development charges are sometimes cit- ed by developers as barriers to affordable housing in the community. A 2015 Clatsop County “housing huddle” identified high system development charges as an impediment to Seaside’s housing growth. Before abandoning plans for 80-homes on a 15-acre parcel known as Blue Heron, property owner Max Ritchie said one of the reasons for the huge unmet need of work- force housing in Seaside is that the high cost of system development charges deters builders from taking on proj- ects. “With such a huge demand for housing, I think the city should enact a temporary waiver of system develop- ment fees to encourage build- ers to meet the housing need,” Ritchie said in 2016. The new study will con- duct an inventory of exist- ing fixed assets, debt service schedules and ordinances. The inventory will be followed by policy review and technical analysis. The analysis will calculate the “improvement fee” portion of each system development charge and a recommended allocation approach. Councilors unanimously voted to move forward with the proposal. With a budget slightly above $32,000, data collec- tion and analysis will take about 90 days to complete. A final report will be deliv- ered to the City Council next March. Great Restaurants in: GEARHART SEASIDE CANNON BEACH Excellence in family dining found from a family that has been serving the North Coast for the past 52 years Great Great Great Homemade Breakfast, lunch and pasta, Clam dinner steaks & Chowder, but that’s not all... menu,too! seafood! Salads! Seaside • 323 Broadway • 738-7234 (Open 7 Days) Cannon Beach • 223 S. Hemlock 436-2851 (7am-3pm Daily) Astoria • 146 W. Bond • 325-3144 WANNA KNOW WHERE THE LOCALS GO? • Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner • Lighter appetite menu • Junior Something for Everyone menu Fish ‘n Chips • Burgers • Seafood & Steak Friday & Saturday - Prime Rib Lounge Open Daily 9-Midnight All Oregon Lottery products available BEST BREAKFAST IN TOWN! 1104 S Holladay • 503-738-9701 • Open Daily at 8am MAZATLAN M E X I C A N R E S TA U R A N T Phone 503-738-9678 1445 S. Roosevelt Drive • Seaside NATIONALLY FAMOUS CLAM CHOWDER • FRESH OREGON SEAFOOD R E STAU R A N T S CANNON BEACH 503-436-1111 Ocean Front at Tolovana Park www.moschowder.com