Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
The recent Klickitat County fires came up several times in yesterday’s Klickitat County Commission meeting. County Auditor Billi Bare said she had toured the burned area with Planning Director Scott Edelman, Building Director Lynn Ward and Code Compliance officer Jorge Sendejas.
It was all part of finding out which structures were lost in the fire, in order to reduce property taxes for those lots
08 06 25 Billi A :21 “We worked with the treasurer’s office to recalculate their taxes that are due this year, because they are allowed pro-rated amounts. Say their home burned down, it was $500,000 value. It existed until July 19, so they pay taxes on that amount ’til July 19, and it’s pro-rated for the rest of the year.”
A single tour won’t uncover all the losses, and Blare announced that her staff had put a handy form up on the Auditor’s page on the county website.
08 06 25 Billi B :27 “We have a link to a destroyed property form. So if property owners experienced loss, whether a home, a shop, an outbuilding, whatever it would be — an assessable item, structure. If there’s business personal property, like a farmer lost his tractor or a piece of equipment, we can work through that as well. Those links are on my website at Klickitat county dot gov.”
In other action, commissioners included in their consent agenda an ordinance adopting amendments to the Energy Overlay Zone. The changes, which take effect immediately, allow wind turbines to be permitted outright, but solar energy facilities are prohibited, except as conditional uses for those of certain sizes in specific areas. It also specifically says that battery energy storage systems or BESS are not an accessory use to solar farms.
And commissioners heard preliminary results from searches designed to uncover the number of properties in the county being used as Air BnB rentals as reported by Economic Development’s Richard Foster.
08 06 25 Richard :29 “Klickitat County contains 367 non-duplicate rental listings, with a rate of $214.73 per day. The average annual revenue for the county for each STR is $22,422. And the county, within this industry, has a total yearly revenue of $8,596,000 from each listing rental.”
County commissioners will also hold a special meeting today, to hear from those affected by the recent fires. That meeting starts at 2 pm at the Lions Club Community Center in Lyle. That meeting will be followed at 4 pm by a session featuring questions and answers from various county agencies.