Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
A major portion of the Goldendale City Council meeting last night was dedicated to a public hearing and discussion about proposed zoning text changes and the addition of chapter on accessory dwelling units or ADUs.
Just before the start of the public hearing, councilor Loren Meagher asked to halt the proceedings.
“I don’t think it’s great for the public hearing yet, Dave, because there’s been changes to the text that we agreed upon that aren’t reflected here. So there were changes that we had made and then they were subsequently changed again. So this doesn’t reflect what we actually agreed upon in the committee.”
Meagher had been one-third of the Ordinance Committee, along with councilors Daniel Clevidence and Brian Paul. The primary concern he expressed was with a paragraph in the ordinance the gave the three purposes of the ordinance. They were listed in order as (1) to provide homeowners with flexibility in establishing separate living quarters within or adjacent to their homes for the purposes of caring for elderly parents, providing for their children, companionship, security or other purposes, (2) to increase the supply of affordable household units within the community; and (3) ensure that the development of ADUs does not cause unanticipated impacts on the character or stability of single-family neighborhoods.
Meagher said the final language had switched the order between the first and second purpose:
“The accessory dwelling unit, the ranking of the purpose of the code revisions, we had said that the number one thing was to increase the supply of affordable housing units within the community.”
He noted that the supply purpose had been dropped to number two on the list.
Councilor Danielle Clevidence, who was also on the ordinance committee, saw it in a different way:
“I don’t think we ever came to a consensus that that was the number one reason we were ranking those. I never occurred to me to rank them from what was the best to what was not. I don’t think this is showing ranking them. It’s just showing three specific things. And that’s what we talked about – three specific things.”
Councilor Brian Paul, third member of the ordinance committee, agreed with Danielle, and the ordinance and resolution both passed their first reeding on 5 to 2 votes. Councilor Theone Wheeler joined Councilor Meagher’s opposition. In her case it was concerns that a person renting out an ADU had to live in main house or the ADU a minimum of 183 days in a calendar year. She felt that was an overreach by the city.
Both measures will be back for a second reading and possible adoption at the next city council meeting in two weeks.
On other actions, councilors unanimously passed a housekeeping measure designating formally, for the record, who signs the city’s checks in what circumstances, building department director Robert Thompson said building fees had nearly doubled from last year from $22,798 to and police chief Mike Smith reported on the holiday weekend:
“Over the 4th of July, we had 14 calls for fireworks complaints and one was cited for that. One firework on the third started on fire and that person was cited for that. Some enforcement, as you know, it was kind of hard to chase the sound of booms. We did the best we could. It was pretty mellow 4th of July for dry conditions.”