LC City Council, Monday
Lincoln City city councilors thought they had another winner of an urban renewal project in the Marview area of Nelscott, but within fifteen minutes it all seemed to be going down in flames. Despite lots of outreach and public input the council was informed by Nelscott businessman Doug Weldon and his wife Connie that the plan causes a large parking problem for overnight lodging businesses along Anchor Avenue because of the way the street would be altered to accommodate new pavement, sidewalks and underground utilities. The Weldons said the new parking outline pushes parking well to the north and away from their inn and cuts off beach access parking for overnight guests. The council learned that beach access parking is not for businesses to use, but they expressed sympathy for the Weldons in that parking along Anchor Avenue is at a premium as it is without shaking everything up due to urban renewal.
The councilors noted that a vote among property owners of the Marview urban renewal area did not rise high enough to proceed with ambitious changes in the area including Anchor Avenue modifications. The council, in effect, told staff to go back to the Anchor Street neighbors and see if they can come up with something better which might include carving out straight-in parking in the middle of what is now the street, and leave just enough room for two lanes of traffic on each side. “It would certainly be a traffic calming arrangement which everyone down there wants,” said Mayor Dick Anderson.
Back to the drawing board? We’ll what staff does with it.
LC Cultural Center goes electric!
Lincoln City councilors found themselves in a “hurry up offense” Monday night in order to qualify for a big grant to install two additional electric car charging stations at the southeast corner of the Lincoln City Cultural Center. When installed, it will raise to six the number of charging stations in Lincoln City – two each at 1601 NE 15th, 1226 SW 50th, and the third and newest pair, at the cultural center. Except at the cultural center one of the two will be the latest and most high powered station available – a 480 volt charger that can “fill up” a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i-MiEV in under a half hour.
The council gave its collective thumbs-up in very short order knowing that if the city doesn’t grab the grant money before the end of the year the money for the chargers will go somewhere else. Cultural Center Executive Director Nikki Price said it’s a perfect fit for their organization and the electric motoring public. They can charge their vehicles while they peruse the many brochures on what is fun and educational to do in Lincoln City. It is also part of ODOT’s “Electric Highway” that is under construction statewide, linking all parts of Oregon so that electric car owners can “electrify” their way around the state without worrying if they’ll make it to the next charging station.
Regatta Park Neighborhood
Click on photos to enlarge
Lincoln City councilors also approved an engineering report that will help support cleaning up Devil’s Lake from all the organics that are seeping into its waters from failing septic tanks from homes in the Regatta Park area. The report says that the vast majority of Regatta Park property owners support the installation of Lincoln City sewer mains, some of whom acknowledge that it would be just as costly to install another septic system than hook up to city sewer. Coupled with the sewer line extensions will be new pavement for local residents. Total cost of the project is less than ten thousand dollars per property owner. There are 57 of them. If eventually approved by the city council, the project would take another 14% of properties on Devil’s Lake off septics. Septic tank pollution, at times, turns the lake’s color a pungent green due to algae and other plant life that feeds on what comes out of those homes. If approved, everyone in the Regatta Park local improvement district would have 15 years to hook into the new sewer lines. As a special incentive, costly system development charges could be folded into the financing for each property owner at a very low interest rate, provided they hook up within the first two years of the project.
There are numerous public hearings to be held before the council would be in a position to decide whether to create the special local improvement district, launch the project and fund it. If they do, the financial template agreed to by the council could be used to form other local improvement districts around the north and east side of the Devil’s Lake where many other homes are believed to be polluting the popular recreation area with their aging and failing septic tanks.
