Current Listing

In my last post I got something wrong and I apologize for the misinformation. It was unintentional.

To clarify R4 and the Commercial zones are excluded from the STR freeze.

R3 is included in the freeze.

Despite efforts to fact check, the city website hadn’t been updated at the time I posted so I relied on memory. I should have waited until I could listen to the meeting a second time.

In the future, I will.

Kim Rosenberg loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com

Recent discussion and decisions made at the Manzanita Council meeting of April 6th have resulted in comments by several community members in the BBQ and other social media platforms. The bulk of the comments have been related to short-term rentals in the city. As we all strive to ensure the continued quality of life in our community, working together with accurate information is critical. The City of Manzanita elected officials and many citizen volunteers have been working towards various quality-of-life issues in our community for a number of years. In the spirit of this Councilor’s outreach and dialogue to ALL members of our community, I offer the following:

• At the April 6th City Council meeting, the Council approved by resolution a pause on the issuance of any additional short-term rental licenses beyond the existing 229 in the R2, R3 and SSR capped zones. These zones represent 90% of all short-term rentals in Manzanita.

• Prior to the vote, the Council voted to amend the resolution to exclude the C-1 and R-4 zones from the pause. Why would the Council make this modification? The main reason was that the R4 and C1 zones have never been capped and are zones intended for both denser housing, hotels, short-term rentals, and other commercial use. In Manzanita, the C1 (Commercial Zone) and R4 (Higher Density/Limited Commercial) are located on Laneda, and approximately one block to each side and provide a narrow buffer strip between the commercial and lower density housing neighborhoods.

• The R4 and C1 zones that are not part of the pause represent approximately 10% of all short-term rental licenses in Manzanita.

• The pause approved by the Council during the April 6th Council meeting is intended to allow for community study of the impact that an increasing number of short-term rentals have on the quality of life in Manzanita.

• The city has been actively involved in the identification and potential mitigation of livability concerns that short-term rentals present in our communities since 2019. A comprehensive report was issued by an appointed workgroup in February 2021 that outlined nearly 20 livability strategies and also included longer range opportunities for improvement that are currently underway. This report can be viewed at: ci.manzanita.or.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/FINAL-STR-WORKGROUP-REPORT-TO-THE-MANZANITA-CITY-COUNCIL-February-15-2021-transmitted-1100.pdf

• The City of Manzanita is currently recruiting volunteers to serve on a short-term rental standing committee that will conduct public meetings and outreach to ascertain even more strategies for maintaining the quality of life in Manzanita. Applications will be accepted until April 15th (tomorrow!). Interested community members should make application by completing the form located at: ci.manzanita.or.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/03.21.22-Application-for-STR-Committee.pdf

In addition, the Mayor and City Council have already embarked on a Budget Revenue Diversification process to explore alternative funding sources to offset the reliance on Short-Term Rental income. They will also direct the Short-Term Rental Committee to study specific livability issues in an effort to address community concerns related to STRs in residential areas. I, as an elected official, do listen to my constituents. The vast majority agree with me that we cannot and should not ban tourists from our town. Instead, we must responsibly manage our growth and the revenue needed to sustain required services.

Questions? Take the time to reach out to the city at strprogram@ci.manzanita.or.us or by contacting an elected City Council member. The contact information for the City Council can be found at: ci.manzanita.or.us/city-council/.

Thank you for your interest and my very best wishes for a wonderful spring,

Steve Nuttall, Manzanita City Councilor

(NOTE:) The information and comments contained in this post are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the City of Manzanita or other City Council members.

This forum occurred at the Kiwanda Community Center in Cape Kiwanda on April 7, 2022

Running for Senate District 16
Melissa Busch – Presumptive Democratic Nominee
Representative Suzanne Weber – Presumptive Republican Nominee

Running for House District 32
Logan Laity – Presumptive Democratic Nominee
Glenn Gaither – Candidate for the Republican Nomination
Dr. Cyrus Javadi – Candidate for the Republican Nomination

Running for Tillamook County Commissioner Position 3
County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell
Graydon Hallock

Running for Tillamook County District Attorney
Assistant District Attorney Aubrey Olson

Running for Tillamook County Treasurer
County Treasurer Shaun Blanchard

Representatives for the following measures took questions:
Measure 29-163 Tillamook County Veterans’ Services Operating Levy

Measure 29-164 Tillamook County Library Operating Levy

Measure 29-165 Tillamook Bay Community College Building Levy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsxiybNYj18

In Harney and Yamhill counties, the county commissioners voted for the same measure as Tillamook county’s 29-161. This measure has been put on the ballot to preserve the second amendment. The second amendment is the right to keep and bear arms – this shall not be infringed – says the second amendment. Like the person who put this measure on the ballot, I am worried about losing my civil and constitutional rights, I am worried about no longer being free!. The bobbleheads have no such worries – (they smile – nod their heads up and down up and down.) and pass legislation to make us less free.
Small businesses are, or were, the backbone of our country and other countries as well. Now most are gone, so our country’s backbone is weak, and the Dems in Oregon passed a tax bill that will further devastate small businesses trying to recover. They are now passing legislation that will cripple small farms.
The Dems in Oregon need to go in order for Oregonians to have a strong state.
We are going to have devastating food shortages. In this county we have lots of food growers. That is a good thing, but not if they are put out of business. An Oregon Democratic legislator put forth a bill requiring the OHA to regulate the animal population, pets included, in Oregon because of COVID. There is also a bill coming that will demand that we vote for the end of animal husbandry because it is causing global climate problems and also because it is “animal cruelity”! The point of this will be to exterminate most animals that we eat for food, but it includes regulating your pets too. Now if your pets do have “Covid” you could treat them with Ivermectin. But all of a sudden Ivermectin will be pronounced by the MSM as a medicine to only be used for aliens in outer space.
They have a story for everything! and you believe it!

So I think we should have a more balanced government. Less Dems more Repubs and Independents. Then crazy and irresponsible legislation will stop and we might get back to normal. I am an Oregonian for Oregon. Our current legislature should represent the people but they don’t. They push out legislation written by lobbyists, and some of our legislators are so dumb they have no idea what the legislation will do to the economy of our state, which effects the whole population of Oregon. I am sure some of them don’t care as long as they keep their jobs (while we lose ours).
I say, vote against as many Democrats as you can, vote for independents and Republicans and
get our state back in balance again.

The STR Divide

On the agenda at the end of the Council Meeting on April 6, a public hearing followed by a vote for a three-year freeze on short-term rentals was held. After the workshop and Council Meeting in March, there’d been a consensus by the Mayor and Council that pausing STR permits to figure some things out was a good idea. The plan was to freeze the number of STR’s in town to 260, I believe. You could still get a license as they became available, but the total number in town would stay frozen. There’s currently only one person on the waitlist and every year there’s some attrition after inspections come up and people choose not to renew.

I know about this process because my husband and I have an STR license for our house, which we renewed in 2020, the year we moved here full-time. When we first bought our house we rented it month-to-month to a couple of different people we knew who worked here in town. We still came down and housesat for a friend with a house on Idaho Street for more than a year. When our last renter moved back to California, we got in line to get an STR license to cover our mortgage. We wanted to use our place as much as we could and rent it out when we couldn’t be here. After a year on the waiting list and an inspection, we were good to go.

When Covid shut life down and work went on-line, like a lot of second homeowners, we decided to move here for real and during the last two years I’ve grown to understand both sides of the STR debate. I understand needing to rent in order to have a house here and now I understand some of the challenges STRs create. Some residents live in neighborhoods with STR density at like 40%. They are next door to a business and not in a residential neighborhood like they thought when they bought their homes. I’ve also gotten to know people who have been impacted by STRs because they work in town but can’t afford to live here and have had to move away. Our businesses have been affected by the struggle to get and retain employees because STRs affect workforce housing. This is all stuff I should’ve known but didn’t until I moved here.

Before the April Meeting the City Manager wrote up a resolution to bring for a vote and met with the City attorney to find out if it was kosher to pause STR’s in the whole town. This included R3, R4 and the Commercial zones, which allow STRs to operate without a wait. The attorney said that the resolution was good to go. I’m sure all this work at the behest of the Council took hours of time for our City Manager to do.

During the public hearing two property owners of homes currently still under construction on Merton and 3rd Street complained that they had only bought their homes because they believed they’d be able to rent them immediately.

So before we go on–those homes in Whispering Pines are not finished yet. They’re still working on the exteriors and some standing water issues. They’re also on the north end of the infamous 3rd Street lot, which has been cleared so completely that there is no buffer at all between those houses and the adjoining residential R2 neighborhood. It’s like a bikini wax. From Edmund Lane you can see who is parked at the Little Red Apple on Laneda and from 3rd all you can see is construction. Maybe the owners are accepting reservations for summer but for right now–the houses aren’t finished.

The Council had a lengthy anecdotal discussion about large family reunions in big houses and the hardship of childhoods spent camping at the state park instead of renting a beach house in town. Somehow accessibility for out of town families came up. Accessibility denotes an ease of use in all ways for people of different abilities and income levels. In a town where most houses rent for far more than a hundred a night, and most vacation homes aren’t really accessible for people with disabilities, using the term makes it sound like rentals in R3, R4 and the commercial zone will be affordable for families when really, they won’t be.

Councilmember Spegman asked if there was a way to fast track the two homeowners on the STR permit list and the City Manager reported that it could be done.

To my point–the homes are still under construction, there’s one person on the waitlist and it’s two people with unfinished homes complaining.

Only Councilmember Spegman voted against the change to the resolution. The Mayor and the rest of the Council voted to exclude houses in R3, R4 and the Commercial areas in the freeze making it closer to a slushy.

Policy 7 of the Comprehensive Plan states: “The plan is not to be used for the benefit of a few property owners or special interests, but for the city as a whole.”

Really?

A person commented at the meeting that the City shouldn’t listen to a handful of people stuck in the 90’s–and I wonder, is it true? Not the 90’s part because that was not a good decade for me. But is it true that just a few people in town wanted the freeze? I’ve received plenty of emails from people in town and around town who say otherwise. But maybe I’m wrong.

It would be a good thing to know.

Regardless of your opinion, I hope you let our City know how you feel. Otherwise, we’re like that spouse on Dr. Phil who never says what he or she wants and then blames their partner for not being able to read their mind. Don’t be that guy!

Emails for Mayor, City Council and City Manager (you can cc all)

City Manager: Leila Aman laman@ci.manzanita.or.us
Mayor: Mike Scott mscott@ci.manzanita.or.us
Councilmember: Hans Tonjes htonjes@ci.manzanita.or.us
Councilmember: Steve Nuttall snuttall@ci.manzanita.or.us
Council President: Linda Kozlowski lkozlowski@ci.or.us
Councilmember: Jerry Spegman jspegman@ci.or.us

Kim Rosenberg loretta.kim.rosenberg@gmail.com