By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats Planning Commission approved a request Tuesday by the owner of the popular Drift Inn restaurant and hotel to allow it to have eight less parking spaces than required, but not before wrestling with lots of questions it hopes the city will soon tackle.
Such as:
- When will the city address the chronic lack of parking downtown during the busy tourist season;
- How can it, other commissions and the city start enforcing some city ordinances that have been ignored or sporadically adhered to for years;
- And, if the city starts enforcing them, where does it begin?
The request for parking relief by Drift Inn owner Linda Hetzler was complicated by two previous variances, loss of parking brought by the reconstruction of U.S. Highway 101 and East Second Street surrounding her properties, and the city letting other businesses open or expand without providing required parking.
Only when the Planning Commission asked a year ago why Hetzler wasn’t required to increase off-street parking when she added onto the restaurant and made changes to a hotel addition did the city ask her to add eight spaces or seek a variance.
When seeking permission in 2017 to add onto her hotel, Hetzler and the city agreed she needed to provide 27 off-street parking spaces. That worked until her business added an outdoor eating area in 2018 and expanded a new hotel awning into a small parking lot this year.
With those changes the number of parking spaces should be 35, the city said.
After months of back-and-forth, requests for more details, new maps and some miscommunication, the Planning Commission held a 2.5-hour hearing Tuesday to hear from Hetzler, several opponents and to debate what to do.
In a quasi-judicial hearing, the commission had to vote on a series of five issues, ranging from whether there were “extraordinary circumstances” that didn’t apply to others nearby or over which Hetzler had no control, that she needed the parking to operate the business, and the issue did not arise from a zoning violation.
In a series of votes ranging from 4-3, to 5-2, to 6-1 and 7-0, the commission found that all five circumstances existed. If any one had failed, the variance would not move forward. The commission then voted 6-1 to approve the variance; Lance Bloch was the only no vote.
“In January we’ll talk about parking,” commission chair Helen Anderson said prior to the final vote. “Right now no one can meet the code.”
The parking debate
Hetzler testified at the beginning of the hearing that she has been required to provide more parking than any other downtown business and that people shopping or dining elsewhere use Drift Inn parking. She also said that despite her busy and expanding properties, she’s not rolling in money.
“A lot of businesses around me have gotten waivers,” she said. “I’m just asking to be given the same opportunity as other businesses.
“I don’t feel what I’m asking for is unreasonable. I’m trying to be a good neighbor and business owner. But I also don’t have the money machine people think I have. I’m not dripping with money. I’m not groveling or whining about it … but just telling you how it is.”
Later during the discussion, Hetzler said she tried unsuccessfully to work with the city to create more downtown parking when the former Alder restaurant came on the market.
“I have done more than my share and will continue to do more than my share,” Hetzler said. “But at some point I will draw the line.”
Hetzler also testified – and it was not challenged – that the city’s previous planner had told her that “seasonal” dining areas did not require additional parking.
“That’s how Luna and Ona expanded their outdoor seating,” she said, without adding off-street parking.
If it denied the variance, Anderson said the city would require Hetzler to somehow adjust her business – shut down the patio or remove a manufactured home in an adjacent lot – to lower the parking requirement to 27 off-street spaces or meet the 35 space requirement.
One person, Sherry Dickinson, testified in favor of the variance, saying no Yachats business provides enough parking and that the city must address developing a public parking lot.
Two people, neighbor Russell Styles and former downtown business owner John Deriberprey, opposed the variance. Styles said the adjacent neighborhood is over-run by restaurant customers and delivery trucks. Deriberprey said the issue could be resolved if Hetzler removed the run-down manufactured home.
Hetzler bought the property at the corner of East Second and Prospect streets in 2013 for parking and employee housing. In 2014 the city asked Hetzler to remove the home to allow for the required 27 parking spaces. But the city granted another variance in 2017 after Hetzler showed she had 27 spaces even by keeping the home.
Bloch and others urged her to take out the home and improve the lot for much more parking.
Hetzler countered it wasn’t that simple.
Local workers need housing. Her dishwasher, who is partially disabled, rents the house for $600 a month and appreciates being on his own – even refusing an offer to move in with Hetzler.
“We know it’s not the most beautiful thing,” she said. “It’s also not going to last another five years.
Under questioning by commissioner Loren Dickinson, Hetzler said long-term plans for the property including eventually removing the manufactured home, developing more lodging and grading and paving the parking lot.
The commission debate
Planning commissioners debated what was “exceptional” about the parking variance for the Drift Inn. All agreed that the 3-year-old Highway 101 improvements significantly lowered the amount of parking in front of many businesses. But few – and certainly not the city – have done anything to make up for the loss, they said.
“She’s providing 80 percent of her required parking,” commissioner Christine Orchard said of Hetzler. “Others like Beach Street Kitchen provide zero.”
But Bloch argued that the Planning and Commission and city haven’t been doing their jobs in requiring or providing parking.
“If we allow this how do we ever get parking under control,” he asked. “Where do we start?”
Jacqueline Danos and Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey said the highway improvements have created access and parking issues for all downtown businesses.
“This city has an exceptional parking problem … it’s a much larger problem,” O’Shaughnessey said.
Danos endorsed a condition of the variance to require Hetzler to provide a better plan for her seven tax lots should there ever be another request for improvements.
“Not having one in the past has gotten us into trouble,” she said. “I feel for Linda. I feel for us.”
In approving the variance minutes later, the Planning Commission attached a long list of requirements, including measurements for all parking spaces, new fencing, landscaping – and a detailed site plan should there be another expansion.