By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Two surplus and vacant Lincoln County building lots along the 804 Trail in Yachats were auctioned Thursday for a total of $185,000.
Scott Gordon, owner of the Yahtel Motel, outbid Patty and Scott Sledgister for a 70- by 100-foot lot on Aqua Vista Loop. The bidding started at $85,000 and six times bounced back and forth between Gordon and the Sledgisters, before Gordon’s winning bid of $110,000.
The second lot, a 50- by 120-foot parcel facing Marine Drive, was purchased by Tom Kerns, who lives just to the west, for the minimum bid of $75,000. No one else bid on it.
Gordon said he was driving to Salem on Wednesday when he saw a Facebook post by YachatsNews and a story with details of the auction. Despite interest in the lots around Yachats, the auction was posted only on the Lincoln County Sheriff’s website and in a Newport News-Times classified ad. County property managers also sent emails to people who had asked to be notified of their sale.
Gordon intends to use the lot so his parents, who live in Las Vegas, can build a house there.
“My parents would like to live here,” he said after the auction. “I saw the news story and called up my parents and asked them if they wanted to move to Yachats.”
Despite the brief but spirited bidding, Gordon said the price was reasonable for someone wanting to build their own place.
“If I was an investor and wanted to flip it, no,” he said. “But it’s a good price if you want to live on it.”
The Sledgisters, who split time between Yachats and Kansas, own a home directly to the east of the auctioned lot. “I like the outcome,” said Patty Sledgister. “It’ll be fine.”
For the time being, Kerns said his only plans for the narrow lot facing Marine Drive is “to do nothing” with it.
Proceeds for 804 Trail
The county acquired the lots decades ago as part of the formal creation of the 804 Trail and easements for it through Yachats.
As part of a more recent effort to turn over Ocean View Drive to the city of Yachats, the county said it would also sell the lots and put the proceeds into a settlement fund designed to augment future work on the trail. The City Council hopes that could help pay for a proposed – a potentially expensive — boardwalk on the 804 Trail at the east end of Ocean View Drive overlooking the Yachats River.
County Counsel Wayne Belmont said Thursday that proceeds from the sale must go into the official 804 Settlement Fund – there’s already about $125,000 in it – and could be used for “qualifying expenditures on future 804 projects.”
“They cannot be used for other purposes,” he said in an email to YachatsNews.