Open Gorge: The Skamania Dispatch & Klickitattler

[Klickitat] 📬 White Salmon Mar ‘26 - Treefest, Mail Stalemates & Middle Housing

• Kate • Season 1 • Episode 8

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This month, White Salmon is wrestling with the real-world costs of rapid regional growth. We’re breaking down the latest moves from the White Salmon City Council, the Planning Commission, and the Tree Board, covering everything from a massive tree removal plan for the new bridge to the surprisingly fierce debate over shared sewer lines for new housing.

In This Episode:

  • The Cost of Density: Why local developers and the city's Public Works department are clashing over shared utilities and trenching costs.
  • Speed Zones: The Pucker Huddle Coalition's push for slower traffic on State Route 141, and why the city is hitting the brakes on their support letter.
  • Mail Stalemates: The latest (or lack thereof) on White Salmon's fight with the USPS over at-home delivery.
  • Free Blueprints: The Planning Commission's pitch for pre-approved housing plans to cut red tape.

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to another Click a Tattler end-of-the-month municipal roundup. Grab a cup of coffee, folks, because we have quite a lot of ground to cover this month in the City of White Salmon. We're looking at the City Council, the Planning Commission, and the Tree Board. And the big theme running through all these meetings, the growing pains of development and who exactly is going to pay for it. Let's start right in the thick of it with the White Salmon Tree Board. If you've been following the Hood River Bridge replacement project, you know it's a massive undertaking. But this month, the project's consultants dropped a heavy number on the tree board. To make way for the new bridge, they are planning to remove 192 trees. That massive number has lit a fire under the board. They are now rushing to finalize their fee and lose schedule. That's the financial penalty that developers have to pay the city when they cut down protected canopy. But it's not just about the money. In response to the bridge's construction footprint, board member Craig Wilson is urgently pushing the city to grant heritage tree status to a single 350-year-old oak sitting near the site. It is quickly becoming a symbolic frontline between regional expansion and local preservation. On a lighter note for the tree board, they saved the city some cash. They decided to skip the commercial printers and self-print draft copies of their new tree walk maps to gather public feedback at the Tree Fest. And speaking of Tree Fest, the recent March 21st event was a huge success, welcoming visitors from all over the gorge to enjoy the board's programming. We certainly look forward to this continuing Arbor Day tradition. And if you want to get your hands dirty, mark your calendars for April 10th. The board is hosting a joint organizational meeting with the Underwood Conservation District to plan a spring cleanup at Gaddis Park. So, moving over to the Planning Commission, things are getting technical and a little heated over the true cost of housing density. The commission hosted a dedicated public workshop this month with local developers, the topic shared utilities. So here's the problem. The state is pushing cities to build more missing middle housing, and this refers to stuff like duplexes and backyard cottages. But if a developer has to dig a massive separate trench through rocky ground for every single new toilet, the costs skyrocket by tens of thousands of dollars. Developers argue that allowing shared water and sewer lines is the only way to make these smaller homes affordable. But the public works department is waving a giant red flag. City staff strongly cautioned the commission against shared lines. They pointed to a history of nightmare scenarios, like 10-foot root clogs and shared pipes that trigger vicious, expensive legal battles between neighbors. Battles that inevitably the city gets dragged into. It's a classic urban planning trap. However, as we note in the written dispatch, other cities are solving this, so instead of handshake agreements, they require strict legal maintenance covenants attached to the property deeds before the shovel ever hits the dirt. Or they scale down the massive utility connection fees, known as system development changes, so a tiny cottage doesn't pay the same flat fee as a sprawling luxury home. You can find links to how some of this works in our show notes too. The commission will meet again on April 8th to figure out their next move. The commission is also looking at another way to cut red tape, a library of 16 pre-approved building blueprints. This is an exciting development as cities around the country pursue similar initiatives to not just help with building new homes, but expediting rebuilds after, say, wildfires, like the 2025 Palisades fire in Los Angeles. Some design and engineering firms also donated plans for this kind of purpose after the Maui fires in 2024. The idea is saving builders and ultimately homeowners, thousands in architectural and permitting fees, but they still have to figure out how to pay for the initial heavy-duty engineering reviews to make those plans legal specifically in White Salmon. You hope to continue to see progress across the gorge in leveraging the pre-proved plan book as a tactic to help keep housing sustainable and affordable. Finally, let's look at the White Salmon City Council. Jurisdictional red tape was certainly the name of the game this month, the Pucker Huddle Coalition, which is a local neighborhood group, asked the council to send a letter supporting lower speed limits on State Route 141 within the urban growth area. But because that area involves the state highways and county lands slated for future city annexation, the council reached a consensus to hit the brakes. They're delaying the letter until they can gather more historical data on county level efforts. The council is, however, taking action on the lower section of that same highway. They authorize the Public Works Director to apply for a WS DOC grant, Washington State Department of Transportation, specifically through the Highway Safety Improvement Program. The goal is to fund systemic safety upgrades for stop-controlled intersections and desperately needed corridor lighting along Jewett Boulevard. In other council news, Mayor Marla Keithler confirmed that the longstanding fight for UPS at-home mail delivery in white salmon is unfortunately still totally stalled at the regional level. This has been a huge source of agony for I know many white salmon neighbors of mine. The mayor suggested that it might be time to mount a more aggressive federal advocacy campaign, so reach out to your congressperson. And finally, to celebrate Women's History Month, the council hosted a great presentation for Columbia High School student Mara Juarez Santoyo, who spoke beautifully on the legacy of civil rights leader Dolores Huerta. So, what's next on the radar? On April 1st, the City Council might officially review that heritage tree application for that old oak and keep an eye out for a date in April when the city will host its very first pizza and policy session focusing on water infrastructure. I think I'm going to try to make it to that. For links to the raw meeting agendas or to read our full context breakouts on the shared utility debate, check out the text version of this newsletter. You can sign up to get it right in your inbox on our website. So, a special thanks to the Columbia Gorge documenters powered by Uplift Local for their civic note-taking that helped make this update possible. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, the home of the Schmania Dispatch and the Click of Taddler. We believe that informed communities are stronger communities. To support our work and stay up to date on everything happening in the gorge, head over to Schemaniadispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.comslash opengorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.