Friday, November 19, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
CANNON BEACH
Appeal reveals clash over oceanfront development
Statewide
concerns
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Astorian
CANNON BEACH — City Councilor
Mike Benefield had just hit a metaphorical
wall.
Why, he wondered aloud at a meeting in
early November, was the City Council even
looking at an easement request from Stanley
and Rebecca Roberts?
The couple wanted to use an undeveloped
public right of way to access their property.
The private drive they proposed was a far
cry from the access they had previously sug-
gested — a raised, curving road that looked
more like a highway overpass than a drive-
way. But the request arrived as the couple
continued to fight the city in front of the Ore-
gon Court of Appeals over a beach house
they want to build.
The access, city councilors noted, is for a
house that has not met city standards and that
doesn’t yet exist.
The City Council will have to consider
access, but many unanswered and thorny
questions about the future of the project
remain. Chief among them is what the impli-
cations will be for the city’s oceanfront devel-
opment rules if the couple prevails.
The Roberts’ property sits where Hem-
lock Street, Cannon Beach’s main north-
south corridor, climbs steeply and takes a few
quick, snaking curves. The couple has owned
the 5,394-square-foot lot for two decades.
Their property is right above the beach
and the view is fantastic. Iconic Haystack
Rock rises to the north. But the slope off
the property and those curves leading up to
it have some concerned about the feasibility
and safety of new development.
The Roberts’ immediate neighbor to
the south is an undeveloped city-owned lot
called Inspiration Point, purchased in the
early 2000s with the help of the public to pre-
serve green space along the coastal cliff. To
the north is land and a replica of a historic
cabin once owned by famed former Gov.
Oswald West.
The owners and caretakers of the prop-
erty, Haystack Rock LLC, claim, among
other things, that the Roberts’ proposal would
impact the historical nature of the site and
also diminish the intent of Inspiration Point.
The undeveloped lots off the Hemlock
Street curves are some of the few such
oceanfront parcels left near the heart of the
city. They allow people a glimpse, a sort
of memory, of what the area looked like
before it became so developed and a hub for
tourism.
Then there is the thorniest issue of all.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Stanley and Rebecca Roberts are in a dispute with the city over a beach house off Hemlock Street.
Oceanfront setback
The property is zoned residential, so a
beach house is allowed. However, the loca-
tion puts it under an oceanfront management
overlay with attendant limitations on devel-
opment. Here, the Oswald West cabin, the
only nearby building, plays a key role.
Last year, the Roberts submitted a pro-
posal to build a 2,712-square-foot beach
house on the northeastern corner of the prop-
erty. City staff approved the request with sev-
eral conditions. The Roberts needed to show
the proposed house complied with the city’s
oceanfront setback standard.
At first, it seemed possible the project
could meet the city’s requirements, Planning
Director Jeff Adams later noted in a report.
But the Roberts challenged the conditions
set on them by city staff. Later, they submit-
ted information that staff and officials say
showed the house they hoped to build did not
meet the oceanfront setback standard.
Cannon Beach’s oceanfront setback rule
has been in place since at least the 1990s,
before the Roberts bought the property. It
dictates that new development must be set
away from the ocean shore and outlines how
to calculate that distance. Most local survey-
ors, engineers and architects know about the
rule and how to work with it, Adams said.
“It’s pretty standard,” he said. “I don’t think
there really had been a question until now.”
Planners calculate the ocean setback for
any given property by taking the average of
the setbacks for existing buildings nearby
that could be affected by a new building. In
the Roberts’ case, the only nearby building
was the Oswald West cabin. So the city deter-
mined the setback for the Roberts’ property
would be the same as the cabin’s: 119 feet.
The line planners drew after applying the
setback standard ran right through the mid-
dle of the Roberts’ proposed house and sig-
nificantly reduced the possible footprint for
any building on the property.
The Roberts have gone through several
appeals with the city over the setback stan-
dard. The matter eventually went to the state
Land Use Board of Appeals, where the state
sided with the city.
The Roberts were not ready to give up
and appealed to the Court of Appeals. The
city expects to hear a decision from the state
early next year.
The arguments primarily come down to
how the city applied its ocean setback stan-
dard and whether or not certain words in
the law are clear. The Roberts believe dif-
ferent people could reach different conclu-
sions about how to apply the ocean setback
standard.
They also argue that state law prohibits
Cannon Beach from applying the standard.
To follow the city’s rule reduces the size of
the house that can be built, going against a
state rule dealing with housing density, the
Roberts argue.
The city contends that the state law does
not apply in this case and that the Roberts’
project was denied not because of the size
of the house, but because the project didn’t
meet the city’s setback standard.
Larger groups have joined the fight.
Signed on with the city is Haystack Rock
LLC, which represents the Oswald West
cabin property, and the nonprofit Oregon
Coast Alliance. They have been joined by the
League of Oregon Cities, which submitted an
amicus brief to the appeals court to show the
organization’s strong support for the city’s
arguments.
The court’s decision will “significantly
affect the ability of cities in Oregon to plan
for and guide development of housing within
their jurisdictions,” the League of Oregon
Cities wrote.
The organization also contends that the
Roberts are proposing interpretations of
state rules about housing density that “would
undermine the ability of cities to increase
housing and avoid other critical zoning
problems.”
Meanwhile, the Home Builders Associa-
tion of Metropolitan Portland and the Staf-
ford Land Co., a residential developer, have
submitted amicus briefs of their own in sup-
port of the Roberts, echoing the couple’s
arguments.
Stanley Roberts said he never expected so
much pushback.
Roberts, a retired Washington state actu-
ary, bought the property with his wife, his
brother and his sister-in-law in 2001. It had
been his brother’s dream to build a house
there. When his brother died, Roberts wasn’t
sure what to do.
Eventually, he decided to build the beach
house — in honor of his brother, he said.
“It was very sentimental to me, to build
where he wanted to build,” Roberts said.
Now he has spent thousands of dollars
trying to realize that dream with no guaran-
tee that it will happen. He’s angry.
“Cannon Beach, I will tell you, should be
renamed Cannot Beach,” he said.
Roberts doesn’t think he will win at the
appeals court. Perhaps he’ll take the matter to
the Oregon Supreme Court next. He isn’t sure.
What he is sure about, though, is a feel-
ing that his neighbors have more ownership
and say over what happens on his property
than he does.
Roberts is not interested in building a
smaller house to satisfy the city’s require-
ments. There is a good chance, he thinks, that
he’ll never be able to build the house he envi-
sioned. If “no” is the final answer, he’ll put
something else on the property: some kind
of homeless shelter, maybe, or, he said, “the
most obnoxious art.”
“I’ll be famous in Cannon Beach,” he
said. “Infamous, probably.”
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