Ryan Finds Loophole in County Code

Extensive excavation, fill and tree removal along Phelps Creek and in the wetland areas of David Ryan’s new property at the corner of Country Club and Frankton (the proposed Super Walmart site of a decade ago) and Andy von Flotow’s adjacent property have resulted in cease and desist orders and enforcement measure by state agencies. See coverage from Hood River BizBuzz. Inquiries to the county have revealed a gap in the County’s land use code that needs fixing.

It turns out the County has no code directed at protecting natural resources in the Urban Growth Area (UGA). The City of Hood River has a Natural Resources Overlay that protects riparian areas and wetlands in the City Limits. Outside of the UGA, Hood River County’s Stream Protection Overlay would have prohibited most tree removal and excavation within 50 feet of Phelps Creek, but the overlay zone specifically does not apply in the UGA. Instead, the UGA is the wild west of stream protection, a weird territory where anything goes. While there are some protections that can get triggered in the UGA if the project needs a variance or must go through site plan review, there is nothing to prohibit an applicant from doing all the site prep first– even if that means removing every tree, excavating every stream bank down to the water– without ever needing a permit from the County.

The Urban Growth Area is land that is outside the city limits but set aside for future urban expansion. The county administers land use there but the rules are supposed to mirror City regulations since land in the UGA will eventually be annexed into the City and logically should be developed to City standards. In this case, the City created its Natural Resources Overlay zone several years ago, but the County has not yet adopted it into its own code.

While state agencies like the Department of State Lands, Department of Environmental Quality and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are pursuing violations on the property now, the work on the ground at Ryan’s was allowed to proceed for much, much longer than it otherwise would have because the County had few rules that it could enforce in its own code. The horse is out of the barn on this project, but we would hate to see similar results along streams on other properties in the UGA.

Now that they know of the loophole, we hope that the County will speedily adopt the City’s Natural Resources Overlay in the Urban Growth Area. Email the Board of Commissoners and ask that they fast track adopting these long overdue regulations.