North Coast
Citizen Serving North Tillamook County since 1996
Thursday, January 23, 2025 | Vol. 32, Issue 2
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www.northcoastcitizen.com
Manzanita council requests beach driving ban WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Most of the BLM’s 28-person Tillamook staff gather for a group photo in front of the new building.
BLM moves into new digs WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Tillamook’s Bureau of Land Management field office has moved into a brand-new building located at the Port of Tillamook Bay, after vacating its old Third Street location last July. Staff are still working to move in furniture and settle in, and Tillamook Field Manager Janet Satter said that the office is planning a ribbon cutting and open house ceremony sometime in March to officially welcome the public to the new building. The move was precipitated after the owner of the Third Street building the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had occupied for 30 years decided not to renew the agency’s lease, which expired at the end of June 2024. See BLM, Page A5
The new Bureau of Land Management Tillamook Field Office on Blimp Boulevard at the Port of Tillamook Bay.
Manzanita’s city council requested that the State Parks and Recreation Commission review rules regulating driving on the city’s beach and bar the practice at their meeting on January 8. Council also approved $13,123 in off-season tourism grants for seven businesses funded by the city’s transient lodging tax and memoranda of agreement with two private property owners to allow for the construction of a separate pedestrian path on their properties along Classic Avenue, as part of upgrades to the water system set to take place later this year. The request to reevaluate the beach driving rules came after the issue was brought to council’s attention last fall and taken up by Councilor Jerry Spegman. Driving is allowed on the city’s beach between the months of October and April, from 7 a.m. to noon, and at any time for vehicles using the beach to launch boats. Spegman said that he had reached out to a state parks official, who had said that she did not know when the rule had been put in place but guessed that it had probably been in the 1990s or earlier. Spegman said that the rule had probably been appropriate when passed, but that in the intervening years, the shoulder season in Manzanita had decreased significantly, as holiday season and spring break travel picked up, making the allowance inappropriate in 2025. Oregon’s State Parks and Recreation Commission is in charge of regulating driving on the state’s beaches and Spegman said that passing a resolution to request the change would spur them to action. The next step in the process will be for the commission to start a rules change process at their next meeting on February 25, which will open a public comment period on the matter. That period will last at least a month and include a public hearing of some type, and the county government will also be asked to weigh in, as portions of beach in the unincorporated county would also be affected by the change. After the public comment period concludes, the commission will ask the council if they still support the change before making a final decision. Nan Devlin, Executive Director of the Tillamook Coast Visitors Association, detailed the off-season tourism grants, which the council
Developers present affordable housing projects for county support Tillamook
See BEACH DRIVING, Page A5
WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Developers working to consummate eight workforce and affordable housing projects across Tillamook County presented their plans to the Tillamook
County Housing Commission on January 14, as part of the application process for grants from the county’s Housing Production Solutions Fund. The projects range from four apartments above a commercial kitchen in Rockaway Beach to a 60-apartment project in Manzanita and the housing commission will now score the projects and make recommendations to county commissioners for the $500,000 in available funds. This marks the third year of the county’s Housing Production Solutions Fund, which was established to support below-market-rate multifamily housing projects in the county. The fund’s money comes from a fee assessed on short-term rental licenses and after this year’s awards, the fund will have given a total of $1.5 million to support projects.
Alder Creek Commons
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Led by North Development Group, the Alder Creek Commons project plans to repurpose the disused Nehalem Bay House in Bayside Gardens into 24 apartments for independent senior living. Nehalem Bay House was formerly a 34-room assisted care facility, which closed in 2022. The building belongs to Community Action Resource Enterprises (CARE) in Tillamook. The renovation will see a rearrangement of the interior space to combine smaller rooms into apartments, so that the resulting 24 apartments would each have a full kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Additionally, the building exterior will be upgraded with new windows and siding, a commercial kitchen would be removed, medical exam rooms would
be repurposed as storage space and new laundry machines will be installed. Apartments will be affordable to people at several income levels, with all units affordable to those making 60% of the area median income (AMI) and six dedicated to those making 30% or below. North Development Group has already received a Local Innovation and Fast Track (LIFT) funding grant from Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and is asking the county for $120,000 to put towards the project’s $2.5-million budget. Renovations are expected to take six months, with Cove Built construction overseeing the work, Cascade Management signed on to oversee the building upon completion and CARE to stay involved as resident services partner.
librarians prep for new system, consortium WILL CHAPPELL Citizen Editor
Being undertaken by Terry Phillips, the National Bank Building project on the Second Street Plaza in downtown Tillamook will add nine apartments when complete. The building, originally constructed by the National Bank, then housed in the building currently occupied by Pacific Restaurant, has played home to the Moose Lodge and Rialto Restaurant in the past, and used to have apartments on the second floor until a fire forced their abandonment. Phillips, owner of multiple local businesses, told the commission that he has built eight or nine houses in the past few years and undertaken numerous renovation projects and has already
Librarians in Tillamook County are preparing to switch the system they use for collections management and to join the Chinook Library Consortium, with both moves set to occur on March 10. According to Tillamook County Library Director Donald Allgeier and Systems Librarian Danielle Meininger, the new system will enhance patrons’ experience of interacting with the library’s offerings while the consortium move will expand those offerings. “These resources belong to this community and so this is just one more step towards making sure that everyone has access to the resources that belong to them,” Allgeier said. The change in integrated library systems, used to manage collections and lending, from the current Sierra system to the new Chinook has been in the offing since last summer. Themnew system will also be paired with a new catalogue tool called Aspen that will greatly enhance the system’s usability. When the new system goes live on March 10, users will be greeted with a more intuitive and discoverable interface, with all a certain material’s formats listed under a single entry, ratings for materials and increased ability to filter results.
See HOUSING, Page A6
See LIBRARIANS, Page A5
National Bank Building