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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1997)
Major expansion proposed for Mist gas storage Northwest Natural Gas Company has applied for permission to expand the ca pacity of its Mist underground gas stor age facility by nearly 1300 acres, more than doubling present capacity. At this time, the underground storage totals about 940 acres in two depleted wells. The project would also require two new 16-inch pipelines from Miller Station to Calvin Creek, two-and-a-half miles south, plus six and eight-inch lines from the storage wells to the 16-inch lines. The pipelines would cross underneath Hwy. 202 and the Nehalem River. Additionally, the plan includes replac ing two compressors at Miller Station with a larger compressor that can handle in creased capacity without increased emis sions of nitrogen oxide. The company will provide information about the proposed expansion at an evening meeting Wednesday, April 23, at Natal Grange. Northwest Natural will provide a barbe cue dinner at 6:15 p.m. Residents are in vited to bring a potluck dessert if they wish. At 7:00 p.m. Northwest Natural per sonnel will show plans for the Calvin Creek project and answer questions. An application for the proposal has been filed with the Oregon Department of Energy. Approval for above ground facili ties will be required from the Energy Fa cility Siting Commission. The under ground project also needs approval by the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Written comments on the proposal may be sent to Marilyn Forsyth, Oregon Department of Energy, 625 Market St. NE, Salem, OR 97310. Copies of the application are available for review at Mist Store, St. Helens Pub lic Library and the Department of Energy in Salem. INSIDE: Financial Director named.______ Pg. 4 It’s Cleanup tim e---------------Pg. 6 W1C in Mist....... Pg. 7 Senior Project, CA to OR-------Pg. 8 Schools and educ. news.... Pgs 10 & 12 City Supplemental B udget------- Pg. 16 Blue Heron Hollow nears full occupancy fernonia Youth Corps students got a head start on the community-wide cleanup day at for April 19, when they applied elbow grease to the bridge over Rock Creek last reek. Shown here, l-r, are Derran Gulleckson, Chad Heckathorn and April Buckner. For more on the cleanup, see page 6. Elections to fill CPAC vacancies Columbia County has scheduled a second date to complete the election of rep resentatives to Citizen Plan ning Advisory Committees (CPAC). The first election was held in March. CPACs provide advice and recommendations to county land use planning entities, in cluding the Planning Depart ment, the Planning Commis sion and the Board of County Commissioners. CPAC mem bers serve for two-year terms. Each CPAC is divided into neighborhoods. Members represent neighborhoods in which they reside or own property. Residents and/or property owners within the neighborhods elect their own CPAC members. There must be at least five voters from each neighborhood to hold an election for the neighborhood. In order to be eligible to vote you must show either picture identification proving that you live in the CPAC neighbor hood where you will cast your ballot, or a tax statement proving that you own property within the neighborhod where you are voting. Each qualified person may vote once in the appropriate CPAC area. CPAC elections will be held in the following locations, and at the following times. Upper Nehalem Valley; Thursday, May 8, 1997, 7:00 p.m., Vernonia Fire Hall. Clatskanie-Quincy; Thurs day, May 15,1997, 7:00 p.m., Clatskanie City Hall. St. Helens-Columbia City; Wednesday, May 14, 1997, 7:00 p.m., Courthouse, Ex tension Meeting Room. Rainier-Fernhill; Tuesday, May 13, 1997, 7:00 p.m., Rainier City Hall, Upstairs Meeting Room. Tide Creek; Monday, May 12, 1997, 7:00 p.m., Beaver Homes Grange. The first elections were held the week of March 24- 28, 1997. The results, by neighborhood, are as follows. Birkenfeld-Mist (one neigh- Please see page 13 The twenty-six unit Blue Heron Hollow apartments on California Avenue in Vernonia are nearing full occupancy, according to Jim Tierney, Deputy Director of Communi ty Action Team, the project’s managing general partner. Two thirds of the townhouses (two-story apartments) have been rented to families from the Vernonia area. “I often hear concerns that a project will bring in a bunch of people from outside the community. That just never happens,” Tierney said. “All communities comprise a vari ety of household types with different life circumstances.” ‘The grant assistance we used is intended to aid the working families who are struggling with modern eco nomic realities,” he added. Tierney noted that in the last few decades, the average American family has been forced to depend on two in comes to maintain its stan dard of living. Housing such as Blue Heron Hollow is de signed to help seniors and single parents - who don’t have this double earning power - to compete in our in flated housing market. The Blue Heron project’s funding is based on the use of a federal tax credit issued to the project by the state, and sold to investor limited part ners. According to Tierney, such projects are necessarily different from low income housing built by other federal programs. ‘W e have to operate like any other business,” he ex plained. W e are unable to adjust rents to fit tenants’ in comes because we have no ongoing source of support.” Most public housing re ceives rent subsidies, based on the tenants’ ability to pay, from the Department of Hous ing and Urban Development. This is often referred to as a “deep subsidy” . "Because we don’t have any deep subsidy, we have to evaluate our residents’ ability to pay the rent in the same way as any other landlord does,” Tierney explained. ‘This has the effect of estab lishing a practical lower in come limit in addition to our legal upper limits. Although we do try to push the enve lope a bit...we ask how we can say ‘yes’, rather than how we can say ‘no’.” Community Action Team and the Columbia County Housing Authority, the pro ject’s sponsors, hope to con vert the apartments into a homeowners’ cooperative af ter their 18-year commitment to rental use is over. Cooper atives require a close-knit neighborhood organization to be successful. According to Tierney, they will begin working with the residents in 1998 to establish a tenant advisory council. The sponsors hope such a council will evolve into a strong self- managing nonprofit by the time the project is eligible to convert to homeownership. Even after conversion, the project will be committed to maintain its affordability. In this case, affordability means that the project’s housing costs, including utilities, will be less than 30-percent of the income of the targeted popu lation. Blue Heron’s income target is 50% of the area me dian household income. In Columbia County, that range is from $12-thousand to the mid-$20s, depending on fam ily size. Please see page 12
