By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats City Council said Thursday that a motel owner wanting to create a small, temporary RV park on his property to house seasonal workers should ask the city for a conditional use permit.
But the idea by Drew Roslund, operating partner of the Overleaf Lodge and Fireside Motels, immediately got caught up in a longer, larger and more complicated discussion of workforce housing, Oregon coast housing shortages, COVID-19 emergencies and the general difficulty of currently finding hospitality workers.
Many employers on the Oregon coast – and especially tourism-oriented businesses – are struggling to find workers because of a combination of state and federal unemployment benefits, COVID-19 fears, childcare issues, and the lack of affordable housing.
Two weeks ago, Roslund broached the idea of carving a small area on the Fireside property to house 4-7 recreational vehicles owned by people who travel the country and work in exchange for places to stay. The concept is widely used, including by state and federal campgrounds and park systems.
On Thursday, the council wanted to hear from city planner Katherine Guenther if such an idea was allowed under city regulations – and to get more details from Roslund.
Guenther said that an RV park could be allowed in an area zoned for motels by getting a conditional use permit from the city via the Planning Commission, which would have to discuss and then hold a public hearing.
Roslund told the council Thursday he wants to create an area for RVs in a grove of trees on the south edge of the Fireside property closest to Coolidge Lane. It would likely use one of five vacant acres, would be fenced from houses on Coolidge and screened from U.S. Highway 101 by tall trees, he said. The park would provide water, sewer and electricity and nothing else.
“I’m going to do this in a very respectful manner because it’s going to reflect on my property more than the entire town,” he said. “I don’t want this to be permanent. This is not prime, productive use of our property.”
Roslund estimates it would cost him $50,000 to $80,000 to create the park but hoped he would only need it for 4-5 years before finding a better solution to worker shortages. He said an initial inquiry to an RV-work website drew three responses from people interested in doing maintenance around the motels. If that was the case, Roslund said he could shift his full-time maintenance staff into cleaning rooms and other duties.
Work on longer term solution too?
The council’s discussion – and comments from two citizens – focused on Roslund’s immediate proposal and longer-term housing issues.
Jacqueline Danos, a member of the Planning Commission, urged the council to address the larger issue of the local and coastwide shortage of affordable housing but to also involve the Planning Commission in the RV park idea.
“The Planning Commission has to survey the community to see if it will allow 8-foot fences,” she said. “Yet, there’s an RV park being discussed and voted on in one meeting.”
But the idea drew support from Sue May, who said she and her husband spent 10 years – including six months in Alaska – working part-time in exchange for a place to park their RV. The “Workamper” idea works well elsewhere, she said, including campgrounds all over the coast.
“You can control the people you bring in,” May said. “I will tell you that someone driving a $300,000 RV is not going to trash up your site.”
During its work session at the beginning of Thursday’s 4½-hour meeting, the council decided it would try to form a special housing task force to discuss ways the city could encourage more workforce housing in Yachats. Councilors Mary Ellen O’Shaugnessey and Anthony Muirhead are supposed to bring back a proposed structure and possible members to the council at a special meeting Wednesday.
Is it an emergency?
Councilor Ann Stott was supportive of Roslund’s idea and that the council should consider using its emergency powers just like when it allowed Yachats’ restaurants to use off-street parking spaces for outside dining during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have the authority … and ways we can approach this,” she said.
Mayor Leslie Vaaler said she was cool to the idea because the “emergency” would apply to just one business. “His business is not where I see an emergency,” Vaaler said. “It seems to me that Drew has a variety of options.”
But Muirhead, who is general manager of the Adobe Retaurant and Motel, said the worker shortage – whether seasonal or long-term – could easily be considered an emergency. He said he grabbed breakfast at the C&K Market on Thursday morning only to hear that a key employee was leaving town because her rental house was being sold and she couldn’t find a new place to live.
“I don’t have seasonal workers (at the Adobe),” he said. “I want a year-round labor pool … but right now we don’t have that choice.”
Some local workers are living in tents or cars, Muirhead said, and businesses are asking current staff to work seven days a week “and we’re not even in June yet.”
“We don’t have three months to discuss this … and have something back to Drew in October,” he said.
While I support the theory of this idea, my folks were full time RVers for 12 years and worked/stayed in many state and federal Parks. I doubt people in $300,000 RVs are going to be the people you get to clean motel rooms. They had very light duty work in the campgrounds. Not the hard work you’re talking about cleaning motel rooms. I would think providing trailer and RV housing for existing locals who “were” doing these jobs and want to continue long term would be a more practical approach. Hiring transient workers doesn’t help anyone in the community except the motel. They’re not vested in the community.
I’m against RV parks in Yachats.
It seems to me that a much more economical and better solution would be for the hotel owners to create a shuttle service that would shuttle folks wanting jobs to and from existing RV parks in other coastal towns to the north. Shuttle services have been used by Silicon Valley employers for years. In 2017 these shuttles were estimated to provide transportation to and from work for 34,000 Silicon Valley employees. I believe there are established RV parks in towns to the north and the hotels could recruit from them and provide transportation to and from these parks to solve their employment issues.
I also agree with Janette that it’s unlikely folks driving a $300,000 RV are going to clean motel rooms. We all know the type of RVs that would populate these motel RV parks.
As I understand it, local motels are experiencing unprecedented demand from visitors and are having a hard time finding employees in general and employees with a place to live in particular.
This idea won’t help increase the size of the employee pool but it might be a partial solution for those who want to work but cannot find a place to live.
Increased demand often leads to increased prices so, what if a motel set aside a certain number of rooms for use by employees and raised the rates on the remaining rooms by an amount that would offset the lost revenue.
Suppose a hypothetical motel has 100 rooms that go for $150/night. If 10 of those rooms were set aside for employees and the night rate were raised to $167/night, the daily gross income would be the same.
Another hypothetical motel with 20 rooms that go for $100/night could set aside 2 rooms for employees and generate the same gross income by raising the rates on the remaining rooms to $111/night.
This wouldn’t address the employees’ food needs which might be problematic as I don’t think most motel rooms have cooking facilities. I am sure there are other unforeseen potential problems but it might be worth some consideration.
Bob,
This might make sense. But an even easier method would be to simply raise wages to attract workers. These additional costs could be passed on to all who choose to stay at the motel. But if the problem is transportation (to and from the hotel), a motel-operated shuttle system that would transport workers from nearby coastal towns (Waldport) to Yachats to clean rooms would make sense. This model has been tried and proven effective for workers all over Silicon Valley. The various motels that are having staffing shortage could combine their resources to fund the shuttle system and the shuttle (a large van for example) could take workers to and from existing RV parks (if that is indeed where potential employees reside).
I do have my doubt that RV parks are where potential employees reside. If this is the case, then the RV park is not any different from a trailer park – a permanent homestead masquerading as a temporary homestead. My thinking is that a shuttle system could also provide transportation to persons not living in RV parks. This wider pool of persons would likely solve the “labor shortage” problem experienced by Yachats motels.
Drew Roslund runs a quality operation at the Fireside and the Overleaf and is not going to develop a shabby RV park. He is trying to solve a problem for his business in a very logical manner. Go look at local campgrounds and you will see homeless/jobless living there in small RVs, this has been developing the last few years as the minimum wage has failed to be raised to a living wage. This could be a lifeline for some of those people.
Yachats City Council needs to not delay a decision on this by requiring a conditional use permit and studying the issue. As Ann Stott recommended, the council should use emergency powers and immediately approve this with some basic requirements to be made in the RV area. No one driving a $300,000 RV needs a job, most likely.
Please don’t kick this can down the road any more. Do something quickly.
Instead of an RV park, why not develop some cottage houses on the site and rent them to his staff? Sure the initial outlay is more, but the end result is permanent and they will likely be able to maintain a work force instead of transient labor.
If he needs “handy person” maintenance services, are their not local contractors that can provide that services?