The Society Hotel in Bingen is considering constructing an eight-unit apartment building to supply housing for the lodge’s workforce. The business is seeking modifications to their existing conditional use permit to make their plans for a “single-family residence” style building in a vacant lot to the west of the hotel work.
At a hearing held Dec. 6 in the Bingen City Council chambers, Mike Beck, who is the Community Development director and also interim planner for Skamania County, which undertakes all planning work for the City of Bingen, presented the plans for the apartment building. The hearing ultimately culminated in a continuance to the second council meeting of the month on Dec. 20.
Beck said the conditional use permit on file with the city would need expansion to include the vacant property on the corner of Cedar Street and Humboldt Street, as well as variances to allow for a less-than-standard amount of on-site parking and yard setbacks.
The parcel is currently zoned R-1 for single-family housing, which was the focus of a question posed by Mayor Catherine Kiewit. She asked why the request was not to rezone the parcel to R-3 to allow for multi-family housing. Council Phil Jones added that a rezone of that magnitude would set “an awfully large precedent.”
The paperwork was prepared by former planner Alan Peters, who has moved onto a new job. Beck said this is just one route the council could take to approve the plans for construction.
The existing zoning for the parcel the hotel is sited on was originally R-1.
City Attorney Christopher Lanz said issues could arise by merging two separate and distinct lots within one conditional use permit. If one lot were to be sold in the future, the conditional use would still transfer to a new owner.
Building Inspector David Spratt said parking partially in the right-of-way does not meet the off-street parking requirement, “but that’s up to council to decide.”
The city had not received public comments by the time the hearing was held.
Jonathan Cohen, co-founder and chief financial officer of The Society Hotel, said the biggest challenge as an employer is attracting people for work.
“When we get really great people, a lot of the time they’re not able to live close by. They’re often traveling at least as far as The Dalles,” Cohen said. One of the main instigators of the project was the lack of childcare for employees. “We went through many iterations trying to figure out a childcare program. We weren’t allowed according to our insurance to host childcare facility on-site. We tried to find off-site locations, but couldn’t find any… We really struggled to find a way to provide close-by childcare support.”
He said the solution before councilors was “literally as close as we could get to our parcel,” adding that city concerns over the zoning of the parcel could be resolved through the work done on the city’s comprehensive plan update.
Cohen further stated that the solution presented before council was the cleanest way it could be proposed. A rezone would require adoption of an ordinance.
He said his current plans provide around 700 square-foot units separate from each other with communal space and shared laundry facilities, with the idea being an employee can move into a unit for a few months at a time while they search for more permanent housing.
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