Dairy Princess Ambassador Candidates Pages 9-10
Headlight Herald
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2023
TILLAMOOK, OREGON • WWW.TILLAMOOKHEADLIGHTHERALD.COM
VOL. 135, NO. 8 • $1.50
Chomping for Charity Habitat Conservation Plan concerns realized with downward harvest projections
Bay City’s new logo.
Bay City Council selects new logo B
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
ay City’s City Council approved a new logo for the city and held the first public reading for a proposed property tax exemption for multiunit workforce housing at their meeting on February 14. They also approved a grant agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation for $250,000 of grant funding to go towards street improvements. The project’s total cost will be just over $267,000, with the balance coming from the city’s budget. ODOT will be widening Main Street between 9th and 13th streets, widening 14th street from Spruce to Williams Street and paving 16th street between Spruce and Williams. Work on the project will be completed within two years. Bay City’s logo was unanimously approved by the council at the meeting. Partners in Design and Lennox Insites developed the new logo, with the goal of standardizing and modernizing the city’s branding as part of a wayfinding update. The new, badge-style logo features three evergreen trees over a half circle of waves, with the city’s name displayed in between on a purple banner. The public reading of the proposed property tax exemption for multiunit, workforce housing developments was accompanied by a presentation from Thomas Fiorelli, Tillamook County’s Housing Coordinator. Bay City’s proposed ordinance closely mirrors a similar county ordinance and the exemption it creates would be administered by the county. Fiorelli said that the exemptions were made possible by House Bill 2377, which was passed in 2017. The bill allows cities to offer a 10year tax exemption to developers who offer their apartments at rents affordable to residents making between 60% and 120% of the area’s median income. To receive the full exemption, all a property’s units must be rented at those rates, although developers can charge a higher rate for some units in exchange for a shorter exemption term. The exemption is available for new construction, as well as properties where more than 50% of a twenty-plus year-old building’s market value is spent on rehabilitation. The ordinance defines “multiunit” as three or more units on a single property. Developers will be required to recertify their rents’ compliance with requirements annually with the county to continue qualifying for the exemption. Fiorelli said that the burden of
n See LOGO, Page A3
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Tillamook PUD employees take on THS juniors in a semi-final matchup of the hungry hippo tournament on February 16. PUD defeated the juniors in overtime before beating a team from the fire department in the championship matchup. Photo by Brett Hurliman
County’s short-term rental committee begins drafting revisions to ordinance T
Will Chappell Headlight Reporter
illamook County’s short-term rental advisory committee began revising the first draft of the ordinance they are developing on February 14. The committee started working through the different sections of the proposal, discussing edits and changes they would like to see to the draft. Director of Community Development Sarah Absher helped to facilitate the discussion. She also gave the committee an update on the county commissioners’ goals for the ordinance, which is overhauling the existing ordinance 84. She said that the commissioners had held an executive session in recent weeks and discussed the possibility of legal challenges to any new ordinance. Absher said that the commissioners had told her to direct the committee that the ordinance should not be designed as a land use regulation. She said that the commissioners were not in consen-
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sus on reducing the number of short-term rentals in the county, only managing their growth. She said that the commissioners had asked her to direct the committee to table discussions on quantity limitations as part of the ordinance. She noted that even if the committee did not adopt specific limits in the ordinance, they could include language calling for the development of working plans for that purpose. This approach would allow the question of restrictions to be addressed at a later date and on a community-by-community basis. Absher also addressed community concerns about Daniel Kearns, the lawyer who is helping the committee draft the ordinance update. Kearns has been a magnet for criticism from shortterm rental proponents, who contend that he is staunchly opposed to the properties. Kearns was absent from February’s meeting.
n See STR, Page A3
Opening in your neighborhood February 27
“1st Security Bank not only understands what a small business needs, they have the flexibility to make it happen.” Sari Davidson, Owner, BooginHead
Member FDIC
Will Chappell Headlighgt Reporter
ork on the habitat conservation plan for Western Oregon’s state forests will continue as planned, after a motion to start a new, duplicate process narrowly failed to pass at a Board of Forestry meeting on February 15. Despite the motion’s failure, the future of the habitat conservation plan, or HCP, remains murky after downward adjustments to harvest projections late last year have drawn concern from the board and the counties and special districts that rely on timber revenues. The virtual special meeting on February 15 was called at the request of two board members. They wished to discuss progress on the HCP after harvest projections in the transitional implementation plan set to be rolled out in July have drawn consternation. Mike Wilson, ODF’s State Forest Division Chief, started the meeting by giving the board an update on a new transitional implementation plan and work on the habitat conservation plan. While not the final HCP, the transitional implementation plan that is set to be enacted on July 1, is a good predictor of the harvest yields that would be allowed under the HCP. The implementation plan is designed to transition from the old forest management plan to the new one scheduled to be rolled out in conjunction with the HCP in July 2025. Interim projections presented to the board last summer predicted harvest levels around 225 million board feet annually, down slightly from the 247 million board feet averaged between 2000 and 2021. However, projections released in January following model solution review last fall that are being used in the transitional implementation plan cut harvest projections drastically further, to between 165 and 182.5 million board feet annually. Wilson said that the cuts came based on more detailed consideration of the conditions in specific groves, mentioning Swiss needle cast and off-site seed as examples of limiting factors in Tillamook State Forest. Wilson stressed that the harvest projections from the implementation plan were not the final projections for the HCP. He said that those final projections would be presented to the board with a variety of conservation and harvest options at their June meeting. Board Member Joe Justice fol-
n See HARVEST, Page A3