[Klickitat] 🏗️ The Multiplex Fight - White Salmon May '26 Round-Up

In this episode, we dive into the growing friction between statewide housing mandates and local zoning codes playing out over a four-unit multiplex on Wyers Street. Plus, we cover infrastructure headaches for Snohomish Place residents, and how the City of White Salmon is pushing to modernize heritage months and establish a brand new tree fund. This episode covers the May meetings of the White Salmon City Council, Planning Commission, Community Development Committee, and Tree Board.

In This Episode:

• City Council: Communication delays on major water line replacements, committee rule updates, and public frustration over Republic Services' waste management.
• Planning Commission: The Wyers Street multiplex debate, the push to review short-term rental policies, and a hard line from the city on shared water utilities.
• Community Development: Phasing out park reservation fees and revamping the city's approach to heritage month calendars.
• Tree Board: Drafting new fee-in-lieu ordinances for developers and planting the U.S. 250th Liberty Tree.

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com for deep-dive context boxes and full meeting logistics.
• View all White Salmon meeting agendas, packets, and Zoom links at whitesalmonwa.gov.
• 2023 White Salmon Housing Needs Analysis
• 2024 WAGAP Community Needs Assessment
• Visit the new Wildfire Ready Hub at wildfirereadyklickitat.org.

Documenter notes are available for republishing under Creative Commons license CC by 4.0. With thanks to theColumbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local: https://upliftlocal.news/columbia-gorge/columbia-gorge-documenters/

Stay Connected with the Gorge

The Skamania Dispatch and The Klickitattler are community-led projects of OpenGorge.org.

To stay updated on local news, governance, and community events across the region, you can sign up for both newsletters at SkamaniaDispatch.com. For real-time updates and to join the conversation, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/OpenGorge.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Click and Tatler Audio Edition. We're jumping into the May Roundup for the City of White Salmon. If you live in or around the city limits, this is what you need to know about what your local government agencies were up to this last month. Let's start right off with the Planning Commission because the statewide push for more housing is creating some real friction with local zoning rules right here in our neighborhoods. You've probably heard that the gorge is in the middle of a severe housing shortage. To put some numbers to it, a recent housing needs analysis found that the median home listing in white salmon hit $869,000. To comfortably afford that, you would need over an annual income of $140,000, which is more than double the city's median household income of about $63,000. Because of that massive gap, less than 10% of the people who work in white salmon actually live inside the city limits. It's a pretty astonishing numbers. The state is then heavily pressuring cities to fix this with new legislation that's meant to incentivize building of more quote unquote missing middle housing. This refers to things like duplexes or townhomes, in traditionally single-family neighborhoods. And that brings us to a dust up happening on Wire Street. At their May meetings, the Planning Commission reviewed a proposal for a four-unit multiplex development on a nonconforming lot on Southeast Wire Street. It sits in an R2 zone. Neighbors showed up to push back hard. They raised major concerns about parking, density, losing mature trees, whether alleyways can handle the traffic, but the biggest debate was structural. To maximize density and meet the legal definition of a multiplex, the developers designed two separate duplexes connected by a breezeway. Neighbors feel like this violates the spirit of the neighborhood, and commissioners questioned whether connecting two duplexes with a breezeway legally counts as single multiplex. City planner Rowan Fairfield clarified that this is where municipal law gets tricky. Building codes and zoning codes often use the exact same words to mean totally different things. He noted that while developers drew two separate buildings on their building plan, that distinction might not matter from a zoning perspective. I guess that remains to be seen, so we'll have to keep tuning in. So the commission is tapping the brakes here. They know that if they approved this specific workaround, they might accidentally set a precedent for similar dense developments across the city. They deferred the vote to get more data, including formal stormwater runoff calculations from the city engineer. And while we're talking about the Planning Commission, they also drew a hard line on shared water utilities. They debated whether adjacent properties should be allowed to share water taps and save some money on installation, but Councilmember David Lindley cautioned against it, warning that shared utilities create massive long-term headaches for the city regarding who pays the bills, maintenance liabilities, and cross-contamination risks. The city is signaling that individual metering will remain the standard. The council approved a $38,000 consultant agreement for design and engineering on the Stouch and Snohomish Waterline Replacement Project. They also approved a roughly $15,000 change order for the transmission line main replacement for phase two. But residents of Snohomish Place attended the May 20th meeting to voice some deep frustration. They told the council they feel entirely left in the dark about timelines and milestones for these massive water line replacements. Folks are worried about surface restoration, impacts on unpaved alleyways, and whether the private service lines are going to be replaced. The city now has the tricky job of balancing engineering contracts with the immediate need to keep homeowners informed before the excavators actually show up. Also at the council, Mayor Marla Keithler highlighted a great new resource. It's the Clicketat Wildfire Ready Hub, built with the Mount Adams resource stewards. You can find it at wildfireadyclicket.org. And sticking with health and safety, public comment shifted to waste management, with several residents urging the city to renegotiate its contract for Republic services due to missed garbage and recycling collections. Let's take a quick look at the Community Development Committee. They're doing some interesting work to modernize how white salmon recognizes its diverse populations. Instead of just rubber stamping generic National Heritage Months, they're tailoring the calendar to fit our community. They drafted a resolution to update Hispanic Heritage Month to Latino or Latina Heritage Month to better reflect our local agricultural and immigrant communities. Community also moved to eliminate park reservation fees entirely. They found that city staff are refunding fees in almost all instances anyway, so dropping the fee just removes a pointless loop of paperwork. Finally, checking in with Tree Board. They finalized the framework for a new fee and loot ordinance. That means if developers cannot meet on-site planting requirements when they build, they will be legally required to pay into a dedicated city tree fund. Board member Karen Black Jenkins pointed out that a percentage of these funds will be explicitly earmarked for tree board, education, and public outreach, giving them a dedicated piggy bank for civic projects. And speaking of civic projects, the board approved Pioneer Park as the planning location for the Masonic Lodge's donated liberty tree, which will mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. So, what's next on the radar? The Planning Commission is set to formally begin reviewing the city's short-term rental policies on June 24th. There's a community World Cup watch party proposed for June 19th in Rheingarten Park, and the tree board is currently hunting for community donors to fund a $500 graphic design project for the new White Salmon tree walk map. If you want the full breakdown, including links to all the original meeting packets and the Zoom logistics so you can attend there for yourself, head over to the written version of the newsletter. Many thanks to the documenters who took notes that were used in the creation of this dispatch. The Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Scamania Dispatch and the Click of Tattler. 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.com slash opengorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode, as well as some of your favorite World Cup snacks. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.