YACHATS – The city of Yachats will not pursue a deeper look at its various ordinances covering trees because the Planning Commission believes it has enough rules already that the city planner feels may just not be enforced well enough.
That’s the upshot of a short discussion last week during a Yachats City Council meeting.
In November the council heard a general plea from area residents – many of them living outside the city and its jurisdiction – to do more to protect trees. Without being specific, the council asked the Planning Commission to look at current city ordinances to see if something needed to be done.
The commission discussed the issue at its December meeting. Commission chair Lance Bloch told the council Thursday, Jan. 6 that the city already has ordinances regulating tree removal when there may be landslide issues, rules on “clear vision” requirements and hazardous trees, and broader outlines for tree protection in the city’s comprehensive plan. Yachats does not have a specific ordinance preventing general removal of trees inside the city.
Recognizing “this is a delicate topic,” Bloch said the commission wanted better guidance than that provided in November.
Councilor Greg Scott reminded others that Oregon’s land-use planning laws are designed to keep houses and businesses inside cities to protect timber and farmland from city-type sprawl. If the city’s priority is housing, he said, “then these two are going to be in tension with each other” and the city should not “micromanage what homeowners are doing with trees on their property.”
Katherine Guenther, who is serving in dual roles of the city planner and interim manager, said Yachats could “probably do a better job” of enforcing the ordinances it has.
“If we can’t enforce it, we probably don’t need to write it,” she said.
In other business last week, the council:
- Appointed John Theilacker to the Planning Commission to replace Helen Anderson, who resigned after nine years on the panel. Anderson served several terms as its chair and was most recently a finalist for the city manager’s job. Theilacker has been a professional planner for 42 years, including serving as Florence’s city planner in the 1990s;
- Reappointed Linn West to the Public Works and Streets Commission, David Rivinus to the Library Commission, and Christine Orchard to the Planning Commission. There are still single vacancies on all three commissions;
- Elected Ann Stott as council president, replacing Anthony Muirhead, who served in that role in 2021;
- Discussed but did not make a decision on revising the makeup of the Finance Committee to shrink its size and focus its mission on long-term financial forecasts and sorting out capital projects to present to the Budget Committee and council. Scott said the group, which met only a few times last year “has lost its rudder.”
- In addition to City Hall being closed except for appointments on Friday, heard a warning from Guenther that because of continued staff shortages and the occasional need to leave the building “there will be times when the door will be closed.”