With street transfer imminent, Yachats commission wants to create two small “pocket parks” along Ocean View Drive overlooking the Pacific

 

By Quinton Smith/YachatsNews.com

Now that the city of Yachats is about to gain ownership of Ocean View Drive, the city’s Parks & Commons Commission believes it’s also time to create two small “pocket parks” overlooking the Pacific near where it intersects Seventh and Fourth streets.

Commission members and members of the Yachats Trails Committee have been talking about the idea for months, and are now pushing ahead with some basic ideas after the county installed new guardrails and delineators that separate the roadway from the 804 Trail. That work was part of Lincoln County finishing up repairs and rehabilitation of Ocean View Drive before deeding the road to the city.

The city also recently placed large boulders between the trail and the open space near Seventh Street to separate it from the walking path and prevent people from driving between the delineators to park on the gravel.

Now the commission wants to continue improvements to make the area more attractive to locals and visitors and continue enhancement of the 804 Trail through the main part of Yachats.

In a city and area known for its trails and walkers, even on a rainy day Thursday the two existing benches had a constant rotation of people stopping to gaze out over the ocean and at least a dozen others passing by as commission members toured the two sites. Four Oregon Coast Trail through-hikers with heavy backpacks draped in plastic trudged past heading north.

“The more we pursue this the more it looks like a ‘no brainer’,” said commission member Michael Hempen, who with Bob Langley of the trails committee, has been spearheading the idea of creating the two small parks. “There’s been no attention paid to these areas for quite a long time.”

The commission wants to change that once the city assumes ownership of much of the two areas; a small slice of the property near Fourth Street still belongs to Oregon State Parks.

The area between the street and bluff near Seventh Street is about 1,200 square feet. It has gravel, overgrown grass, holes and uneven ground and an old bench perched too close to the edge of the bluff. An unsightly pole used to support a Central Lincoln PUD power pole across the street is periously close to the edge.

During a tour of the two areas Thursday, members of the committee, and Langley and Joanne Kittel of the trails committee pointed out possibilities and ideas for improvements.

“What do we want it to look like?” Hempen said in an earlier interview with YachatsNews.

It was initially thought to lay grass sod over much of the proposed park near Seventh, but commission member Craig Berdie has convinced the group that native plants and grasses would do better so close to the ocean and involve less maintenance. An existing bench would be moved away from the edge to an area on the north edge of the plot. At least one other bench would be added on the south edge of the park.

Salal or some other plants could be planted along the bluff to discourage people from getting too close, suggested Adam Altson, who lives across Ocean View on Sixth Street.

The proposed pocket park to the south at Fourth Street is a bit more complicated.

The area has 145 feet of frontage on Ocean View Drive, more gravel, just one bench, and areas of waist-high salad and weeds covering much of the site. Oregon State Parks — not Lincoln County — also owns the land to the west of bench.

Commission members think they can level out the gravel, add some where needed, and cut paths through the salad to openings where they can install new benches.

Kittel reminded commission members Thursday they need to have the state parks’ archeologist examine the area before they do any substantial digging because all of the area used to be shell middens created by Native Americans. The county had to have the state park archeologist dig test holes to look for artifacts — not old shells — before they installed the pilings for the guard rails.

Commission member Craig Berdie estimates creating the two parks would cost between $20,000 and $25,000. Maintenance could be done by the trails committee with help from the city’s contractor who maintains some grass areas and open spaces.

The city — because it has been spending little on personnel and projects and collecting a big stream of lodging taxes — has money to spend. As of July 1, the city had $670,000 in just one portion of its budget for visitor amenities, which comes from lodging taxes at motel and vacation rentals, and there’s $135,000 in reserve for parks and trails use. That money must be spent on tourist-related activities — which includes trails.

Commission members plan to refine plans before it meets Tuesday, then make a recommendation to the City Council to consider Oct. 20.

Berdie says there is a bit of urgency to getting the go-ahead.

The native plant nursery operated by Oregon State Parks in the Beaver Creek area is willing to grow the necessary items for the two pocket parks, he said, but they need to know this fall so it can get the plants ready to go for next spring.

Hempen said the commission and the trails committee want the improvements along that stretch of Ocean View to tie in with a much larger and more complicated boardwalk proposal overlooking the Yachats River between Pontiac Street and U.S. Highway 101 to the south.

“Hopefully, this is something that can be done over the winter and be mostly ready for the spring,” he said.