February 13th, 2008
Hearing on resort in gorge popular
HOOD RIVER -- Before talking about the large-scale resort being proposed on federally protected land, Tom Wood spoke Tuesday about all the rules and restrictions that help keep the Columbia River Gorge beautiful.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
For starters, there are the detailed regulations that include pre-approved paint colors for houses, the guidelines to ensure that trees hide buildings and the limitations on outside lighting.
Like it or not, Wood, 61, said, residents play by rules that are in place. But when it comes to the proposed destination resort west of White Salmon, Wash., he argued, the rules are dangerously close to being rewritten and a new precedent is perilously close to being set."We can't have it both ways in the gorge," said Wood, of The Dalles. "Either we stop this first resort or a second one will follow."
Wood and some 130 others poured into a Hood River conference room to air their thoughts -- a majority of them negative -- about the proposed recreation resort on the site of what is now a dilapidated lumber mill.
The Columbia River Gorge Commission hasn't seen that many people attend a public meeting in at least four years, and public comment stretched so long that it will continue at the commission's next meeting March 11.
A vote on the project had been scheduled then, but the additional time needed for comments may push a final decision back again, this time into April.
"We have had more public hearings on this matter than in the entire 20 years I've been on the gorge commission," Commissioner Joyce Reinig said after Tuesday's seven-hour meeting. "We need to move on."
The landmark National Scenic Area Act approved by Congress in 1986 designated special protection for 292,500 acres along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington. Exempt are 13 designated urban areas.
Broughton Lumber Co. -- which first proposed a resort on its land in the late 1980s -- is seeking to build an $80 million to $90 million destination resort featuring roughly 245 units, which probably could accommodate about 1,000 people. The land is one of four parcels in the 85-mile gorge designated "commercial recreation" and is now zoned for 175 camp sites and 35 cabins.
Building the resort would require the commission to amend its land-use management plan; commission staff back the proposal and suggest eliminating restrictions on the number of developable units. Jill Arens, gorge commission executive director, told the 12 voting members that Broughton's location and circumstances are unique.
"There is a need for this plan amendment to transform this site," she said.
Washington state politicians and business representatives from North Bonneville, Bingen and the Port of Skamania County expressed support for the project. Letters presented from the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and former U.S. Rep. Les AuCoin, D-Ore., a co-sponsor of the scenic act, criticized revisions to the gorge land-use plan.
As the meeting drew to a close at 4:45 p.m., even Jason Spadaro, Broughton's general manager, had yet to testify.
Asked afterward how he thought the day went, Spadaro noted that Friends of the Columbia Gorge, a key opponent of the proposal, lengthened the testimony by offering transportation and lunch to anyone willing to testify Tuesday.
Michael Lang, Friends' conservation director, countered that it is irrelevant whether his group "carpooled" and offered Subway sandwiches. "If Jason wants to complain about public involvement," Lang said, "let him."
Coming up on six months of public testimony in March, it now seems most are ready for a commission decision.
"Hopefully," Spadaro said, "it's sooner rather than later."
