Yachats Planning Commission votes 6-0 Tuesday to reject conditional use permit for controversial hotel/motel project

 

YACHATS – The Yachats Planning Commissioned voted unanimously Tuesday to turn down a conditional use permit that could have allowed a hotly debated hotel/motel project along Yachats Ocean Road.

There was little debate among six commissioners during their vote after a 4-hour hearing saying that the Cottages at Agate Point had major issues involving access, parking, traffic and design.

“We have granted conditional uses in the past and there have been good reasons,” said commissioner Christine Orchard. “There are none here.”

The commission’s decision drew cheers and applause to the handful of people remaining – from an initial 40 — in a meeting room in the Commons set aside for a group Zoom meeting. Another 60 people attended the online meeting from their homes or offices.

The proposal to build seven structures called a hotel/motel but operated like vacation rentals on a half-acre lot at the end of Shellmidden Lane had drawn widespread opposition from neighbors and others concerned about visitors’ access to the site, traffic on Yachats Ocean Road, adequate access for fire engines, and whether it was really a hotel – as labeled – a motel, or a cluster of vacation rentals.

The definition of the project changed what conditions the project had to meet.

Despite the widespread opposition, Jonathan Fletcher, who has a vacation home in Yachats and who proposed the project with his brother, Chris, said they would have to consider whether to change the project to see if it could pass muster.

“I feel we got tripped up by the hotel/motel designation,” Jonathan Fletcher said. “We have to consider re-working this.”

Commission members said they considered the project to be a motel, which would require a wider street than Shellmidden and that the property needed a large diameter turning area for emergency vehicles.

Allowing a hotel or motel would also require an exception – called a conditional use permit — to Yachats’ ordinances that require them to be on one acre and have direct access to U.S. Highway 101.

Commissioners were also concerned that the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District or the state Fire Marshal’s office had not commented on access issues, and that Oregon State Parks – which owns Yachats Ocean Road – had not weighed in on traffic.

“All in all, I’m not convinced this facility is a good fit for the neighborhood,” said commissioner Loren Dickinson. “I can’t approve this; there’s too much missing.”

The meeting got off to an awkward start when technical glitches kept the audience in the Commons from hearing much of what was going on for the first 30 minutes before more speakers were hooked up.

During that time two newly appointed commissioners acknowledged they had written the city last October opposing the Agate Point proposal. Tod Davies, who was appointed in May, determined it was best if she not participate. Julie Bailey, who was appointed in April, said she could hear the testimony, consider it impartially and vote.

This story will be updated Wednesday

 

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

YACHATS – The Yachats Planning Commission on Tuesday will take up a contentious proposal to construct seven structures containing eight rental units in a motel zone in the south side of Yachats that has drawn more than 100 letters of opposition and spurred the formation of a citizens group to more actively weigh in on land-use decisions.

The commission hearing on the Agate Point development proposal at 3 p.m. Tuesday is expected to generate hours of testimony before the commission considers specific issues it must decide. The city, in its first “hybrid” online and in-person meeting since the pandemic began two years ago, is also setting up equipment in Room 8 of the Yachats Commons to allow people to watch and testify there.

Jonathan Fletcher and his brother, Chris Fletcher, of Newport Beach, Calif. are asking for a conditional use permit to build seven modular structures containing eight rental units, an office and small meeting room on .57 of an acre at the end of Shellmidden Way, overlooking Yachats Ocean Road. The land is zoned R-4, which means it could be used for anything from a motel to a four-plex to a house.

 

The commission was originally scheduled to hear the issue last October. But the Fletchers pulled back the application after discovering widespread citizen opposition to the proposal and to wait until the Oregon Department of State Lands finished a wetlands study.

In the meantime, opposition to the proposal has swelled, leading to the formation of a group called the Yachats Action Alliance and generating more than 100 letters to the city in opposition – and one letter in support. It is the largest reaction to a development proposal in Yachats since Dollar General built its store in 2016 and a failed proposal in the mid 1990s to develop much of the west face of Horizon Hill.

The Fletchers need a conditional use permit to proceed with plans because Yachats’ ordinances require that motels be located on at least one acre of land and have direct access to U.S. Highway 101.

The Planning Commission would also need to decide if the project could operate as a motel, hotel or be classified as eight individual vacation rentals, which would require city licenses. That determination could also trigger a change in design and density of buildings on the lot.

Yachats is currently 13 licenses under its cap of 125 vacation rentals, but there is a waiting list of 30 property owners.

Even if the Planning Commission approves and no one appeals to the City Council, the Fletchers will have to work with the state to determine how to mitigate .13 acres of the property – 5,662 square feet of the 24,829 square foot lot – that the state recently classified as a wetlands before proceeding with any development.

In its latest cover letter, the Fletchers said they intend to offset wetland impacts by paying into the Wilbur Island mitigation bank, which sells tidal and freshwater mitigation credits for the Alsea, Siuslaw and Siltcoos watersheds, and in other areas around Yachats and Waconda Beach.

The seven-member Planning Commission could face an issue of its own. Two members appointed in April and May – Julie Bailey and Tod Davies – wrote letters in opposition to the Agate Point proposal last October and may have to acknowledge that conflict or recuse themselves from voting on the permit.

Changing nature of travel

In a cover letter to its updated application, Jonathan Fletcher said his family bought a retirement home in Yachats in 2018 and then a year later purchased the land along Yachats Ocean Road. He said that Yachats’ land use plans acknowledge it is a tourist and retirement destination and that no new motels have been built in decades, one was torn down and another converted to long-term rentals.

There are only two vacate sites in Yachats on land zoned R-4 for motels, the Fletchers said, and their project is intended to cater to the changing nature of the hospitality industry.

“We realized that our property on Yachats Ocean Road is quite unique and well suited for a small upscale hotel,” the application letter says. “It has a stellar location, is within walking distance to shops and restaurants and is appropriately zoned, allowing us to bring travelers out of residential neighborhoods into an area specifically set aside for such uses.”

The cover letter also says that the proposal is “not trying to skirt the short-term rental issue” but address it by “taking what would be short-term rentals and moving them into an area actually zoned for such a use.”

“Over the past several years Yachats has lost hotel rentals,” the letter says. “This has pushed visitors into Airbnb units in residential neighborhoods. We are trying to alleviate that pressure by creating units in a low-density property zoned for hotels.”

The application proposes:

• Seven buildings with eight rentable units. In a change from its original application, the Fletchers are setting side one portion of a building for use as an office for the rental manager and have added a meeting room for events or gatherings;
• The property would be managed by a rental agency, with someone to check in guests and perform daily checks;
• Pre-fabricated, modular buildings totaling 6,400 square feet of space that are 14 feet high in a zone that allows 30-foot high structures;
• Access off Shellmidden Lane, a narrow gravel unimproved city street with a 30-foot right of way that dead-ends in front of the Fletcher’s property;
• Twelve off-street parking spaces; the city’s code requires nine.

Widespread opposition

There has been opposition to the plan from neighbors and others in Yachats since the Fletchers organized a community meeting last July to discuss their proposal. Since then, the city has received more than 100 letters or emails objecting to the proposal.

The concerns – some of which can be addressed by the planning commission and some are outside its purview – center on:

• The general traffic impact on Shellmidden and the inability of a fire engine to turn around on the dead-end street. Shellmidden is near the southern end of Yachats Ocean Road and serves a handful of single family homes, a condominium complex and The Dwellings planned unit development;
• The traffic impact on Yachats Ocean Road, the single- and two-lane road owned by Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department;
• That the project is not a motel or hotel, but a vacation rental complex. Opponents say that allows the proposal to avoid lot coverage issues when the cottages are really single-family dwellings with bedrooms, living areas, kitchens and private outdoor areas which have different development standards;
• Concern over impact to the wetlands on the Fletcher’s property and wetlands on vacant lots to the north and east; and
• General, widespread opposition to issuing the number of variances to approve a conditional use permit.

“Please deny all conditional use permits,” James O’Brien, who lives in the Koho development on the north end of Yachats Ocean Road, wrote in his letter of opposition. “This is not a matter of being anti-progress, but rather being opposed to a development which requires so many exceptions to the Yachats comprehensive plan.”

The proposal also led to the formation of a group called the Yachats Action Alliance, which was initially formed to fight the project but now hopes to continue weighing in on development ideas and plans.

John Ayer, one of the group’s four-member steering committee, said the group formed after neighbors expressed surprise at the city’s standard notice for the development and has since pressed for more and better communication on planning issues.

Now it hopes to help keep Yachats residents informed of development proposals and the Planning Commission’s work – as well as pressing the city to do a better job of communication.

“We can be an active and positive group,” Ayers said.

Commission’s narrow focus

After what is expected to be hours of public testimony Tuesday, the Planning Commission has to focus on a handful of relatively narrow issues that city planner Katherine Guenther has said the proposal may not meet. These are:

• Does the proposed project fall under definitions and standards for motels and hotels, or are they single-family dwellings used as vacation rentals, which would then guide different determinations for open space and density requirements;
• If the proposal is determined to be a motel/hotel, should the commission then issue a conditional use permit allowing it on less than one acre of land and without access to Highway 101;
• And, allow the project a variance from requirements that commercial or multi-family uses not be allowed access from a cul-de-sac, and prohibits motels/hotels access from streets less than a 35 foot right-of-way.

“This high-quality community will fill a growing need in this community,” the Fletchers said in their latest cover letter with their proposal. “Strong management, combined with the low-profile, low-density layout will help make this high-quality collection of cottages as respectful as possible to our neighbors and larger community.”

But even a longtime Yachats real estate agent known for her defense of property rights has written the city to oppose the project. Wendy Snidow, owner of Coastal Homes & Land, said the city turned down a development proposal for the site in 2004 because of poor access off Shellmidden Lane and the wetlands issues.

“I opposed this development in the past and my opinion has not changed,” she wrote. “Please dig into the past files. Why was it not approved then? The obvious reasons are compounded today.”

• Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com

To read the Cottages at Agate Point proposal, letters to the Planning Commission and the city’s staff report on the project, go here