By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – The Yachats city council held two public hearings Thursday, approving the donation of a long-neglected and small piece of Shell Street to adjoining property owners but sending back to the Planning Commission new wording on limits to fences, walls and hedges.
Both hearings lacked staff reports, recommendations or presentations by staff or commission chairs resulting in long, sometimes confusing discussions over the basics of the issues during a four-hour meeting.
The council voted 4-1 to vacate a 30- by 82-foot undeveloped section of Shell Street where it dead-ends into the north side of the Yachats Inn property.
Jim and Marilyn Paul and John Aviana and Linda Siegel live on the west and east sides of the undeveloped street but have been caring for it because the city did not. They requested the city deed the property to them so they can do more landscaping and so the Pauls can build a fence on their portion so they can have a dog.
The city sent notices to 33 nearby property owners and received 22 responses agreeing with the request to vacate the street, said planner Katherine Guenther. The only person speaking in opposition Thursday was Shirley Vangarde, a neighbor who asked the city to include a pedestrian easement for a public trail through the property.
“All we were trying to do in the beginning was to get the city to maintain its property,” said Jim Paul. “They refused to do that. So the best option is for us to take ownership and maintain it.”
After a meandering discussion, the council voted to vacate the stretch of road and deed it to the two neighbors. Mayor Leslie Vaaler voted no, saying she objected to the city giving the property away before seeing if it could sell on the open market.
Marilyn Paul said their request, which started two years ago but stalled during city hall staffing issues, had become “way overblown.”
“This has become a much larger issue than it deserves,” she said. “The city has more important issues.”
The council had a similarly disjointed discussion during its second hearing of the day on amendments to the Yachats municipal code regarding the height of fences, walls and hedges. The new wording, clarifying language in the existing code, had come to the council after more than two years of work by the Planning Commission and limits the height of all three to no more than eight feet.
The council had questions on how to deal with hedges, naturally-growing vegetation, judging the intent of neighbors, and if and how problems are dealt with through code enforcement.
In the end, it asked for and got a recommendation from city manager Heide Lambert to send the proposal back to the commission to clarify – and voted unanimously to do so.
That resulted in some frustration from commission chair Lance Bloch, who told councilors he had a “clear sense of the council’s concerns” but did not “by any means have a clear sense of the solutions.” He also said the council was missing the point of how code enforcement is done in Yachats.
“We passed a lighting ordinance two years ago and we don’t deal with it unless there is a complaint,” he said.
In other business, the council:
- Was introduced to the city’s new code enforcement officer, Jyl Fueling, who started this week and briefly introduced herself by saying she has a master’s degree in archeology and had previously worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho.
- During its work session, had newly capital improvements projects coordinator Holly Hamilton walk through a process she has been developing with Lambert and an advisory committee. The council had an extended discussion on the proposed roles of the advisory committee and the newly-reconstituted Finance Committee, but agreed to let Hamilton and Lambert walk them through the new process using several projects already under way. That is expected to come back to the council at its Nov. 16 meeting.