Yachats Planning Commission asks City Council for 11 p.m. shutoff and three years to negotiate future of motels’ marine lighting

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

The Yachats Planning Commission has tossed another hot potato into the lap of a new City Council when it begins work next year.

The commission voted unanimously Monday to give two motels with spotlights that shine into the ocean three years to work out some sort of compromise with the city on their use. If nothing is worked out, they would be banned.

Until then, the commission said they would have to be turned off between 11 o’clock each night and sunrise the next morning, if the council passes the recommended lighting ordinance.

The commission also asked planner Justin Peterson to consult with the city attorney to see if Yachats could immediately ban marine lighting from a handful of single-family homes along Ocean View Drive and Yachats Ocean Road. That would leave only the Adobe Motel and the Overleaf Lodge the focus of the lighting curfew and potential ban.

The issue over marine lighting from the two motels and a few residences is part of a much larger and longer re-working of the city’s lighting ordinances by the planning commission.

The commission has twice sent the ordinance to the City Council for approval, and twice the council has sent it back for changes. In October the council asked for a variety of small tweaks. In November the council sent it back again – and asked it to work out a compromise on marine lighting — after complaints and threats from the owners of the Adobe.

Commissioners and some Yachats residents want the marine lights extinguished to enhance the city’s move to a “dark sky” community and because there are studies showing that such light harms marine life.

The motel owners contend that the thousands of guests who use their facilities come to see the ocean, and that lighting the shoreline at night enhances their visit. And, they say for a city where the majority of its budget comes from lodging taxes, keeping visitors happy and returning is important.

Curfew could be acceptable

For the first time in all of the Planning Commission’s meetings the past year, the general manager of the Adobe and the general partner of the Overleaf attended the special online session to offer their views – and what might work for their businesses and the community.

Drew Roslund of the Overleaf and Anthony Muirhead of the Adobe said the 11 p.m. curfew – but not a ban in three years – could be acceptable.

Muirhead said he needed something he “could sell” to Adobe owners Ed and Karen Pfannmuller. The 110-room Adobe markets the lighting as an attraction for its restaurant and lounge overlooking the water.

“My owners do not want to have marine lighting permanently turned off,” he said. “I’d like to find a middle ground, if we can.”

Muirhead said few in city government or on its commissions seem to understand the plight of local businesses, especially during a year ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

“There was a consideration to close the Adobe permanently this year,” he told the commission. “Never in my lifetime would I have thought that to be possible considering how well we were doing before 2020.”

Roslund said he believes the city or its residents rarely consider the perspective of Yachats’ visitors or acknowledge they contribute the majority of the city’s budget.

And, he said, they come to see the water – not dark skies.

“Our guests come for the ocean,” Roslund said. “That’s what I want to look at, that’s what I want to listen to, and that’s what I want to smell.”

He said asking motels to market “dark skies” at the coast is unrealistic because it is cloudy the majority of the year. “I can’t rebrand that,” he said. “But I can brand something that’s always there – the ocean.”

Roslund also said the spotlight on the Overleaf had been on until midnight, but is now shut off at 11 p.m. Muirhead said the Adobe’s lights are on all night.

Studies and negotiations

Roslund also said he would be interested in seeing any studies showing that the lights could harm marine life. “I haven’t seen any evidence that it’s detrimental on the rocky coast of Yachats,” he said.

Planning commissioner Jacqueline Danos told Roslund that studies she has found on the effect of artificial light on the ocean indicates it can harm tiny sea life at the “bottom of the food chain … and that has ramifications all the way up the food chain.”

During a commission workshop before its regular meeting, Danos also pushed back on trying to negotiate with the motel owners.

“I don’t think banning marine lighting is a catastrophic issue,” she said. “We’re not telling anybody they can’t light their property for safety. I don’t think there’s anything to negotiate …”

On a 2-4 vote the commission rejected a motion by Lance Bloch to allow the lights for five more years with the 11 p.m. curfew before they would be banned, unless the city negotiates something different.

It then voted 6-0 to allow the lights for three more years with the curfew – and requested the city negotiate a final marine lighting agreement with the Adobe and Overleaf owners. It also directed Peterson to find a way in the ordinance to eliminate marine lighting in single-family residential areas.