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Clatsop County Plan Update Raises Key Issues
Clatsop County has been revising its comprehensive plan, one goal at a time, over a number of years. This year, the county is working on the last three goals: Goal 16 (estuaries), Goal 17 (coastal shorelands), and Goal 18 (beaches and dunes). At stake are future policies concerning such issues as shoreline armoring, public access, development in dune areas, and cable crossings of the shoreline. (“Goals,” which have the force of law, are the fundamental structure of Oregon’s statewide land use planning system.)
The county is offering an in-person meeting about the plan, where community members can gain information and provide feedback to the planners, on Saturday, Sept. 14, from 10 a.m. to noon. The meeting will be hosted at the Knappa High School library at 41535 Old Highway 30.
Oregon Shores and the Surfrider Foundation are working together to address these issues and provide information to Clatsop residents who would like to help to influence the planning process. As part of our Oregon Beaches Forever campaign, we will seek to organize widespread involvement in the planning process, advocating for the strongest possible conservation provisions, once it becomes clear when the public comment period will begin. We have already sponsored a land use planning seminar in Astoria, aimed at helping county residents get up to speed on the planning process, and will do more to engage our members once there is a draft plan to consider.
The timeline for completion of this planning effort has slipped. Originally, the entire plan update process was to be completed in 2024. The county now acknowledges that, realistically, it will not be finished until late in the first quarter of 2025 (and likely not then). At present, consultants led by the Astoria-based CREST (Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce) are working on draft recommendations, and the state’s Department of Geology and Mineral Industries is developing new maps showing sea level rise. Once those become available, there will be a public comment period and in-person stakeholder meeting. The consultants were scheduled to deliver recommendations by October, although the process got off to a late start, and it appears unlikely that the deadline can be met. Once the final set of recommendations is delivered, the proposed update language will be considered first by the county’s planning commission, and then by the county commissioners, who will eventually adopt the new provisions.
Watch for more information once we have a draft plan and timeline to use as the basis for organizing our response. To learn more about the issues and how to get involved, contact Phillip Johnson, Oregon Shores’ Shoreline and Land Use Manager, (503) 754-9303, phillip@oregonshores.org.
Written by: Phillip Johnson, Shoreline and Land Use Manager
Photo: Clatsop County coastline, by Kirt Edblom