A6 News-Times • Newport, OR Friday, January 19, 2018

TINY HOMES

Potential housing fi x faces hurdles

BY JOAN BROWNOf the News-Times

NEWPORT — As some tout tiny homes as a means for aff ordable housing, oth-ers argue they don’t off er a solution.

“The tiny home, there’s nothing categorically wrong with it, except what we’re see-ing is because it’s such a fad of tiny homes it’s kind of like the wild west out there,” said Onno Husing, director of Lin-coln County Department of Planning and Development. “A lot of these so-called tiny homes, who knows where they’re manufactured. They’re not being inspected, they’re not being built to building code standards.”

He’s had to tell people they can’t build a tiny home, but it’s not because of the size — it’s because of the zoning or the plans failing to meet building standards.

“Oregon has a strict land use system, and there are large parts of the county that are zoned for agricul-ture and timber. And that’s one of the reasons it looks so great around here, is that you don’t have sprawl everywhere. You just can’t build what you want, where you want,” Hus-ing said.

“Building codes are spe-cially designed to make sure people don’t die in fi res, and that they’re safe, and that the (home) is well constructed. That’s the whole point, is to protect life and property. Building codes are grounded in long-term experience.”

Architect Melica Dedijer, who lives and works out of her home in Waldport, said she is very interested in tiny homes. She is currently working on speculative tiny home designs that visually match with the environment and work with the natural setting.

“As an architect everything has to be to code,” she said. “There is additional value of having a design.”

In 1995 Dedijer and her ex-husband designed a tiny home in Yachats on Kings Road, in which she also served as the general con-tractor. In October 1995 that home won the Newport News-Times People’s Choice Award. Eventually second owners added on, but not to the original design.

“Architecture is more than just building, it gives you this added value, of space and flow,” she said. “You build within the budget then you give them something more.”

But even if zoning and plans are approved and the per-square-foot price is reason-able, getting a loan for a tiny home may be problematic.

“A construction loan requires a lot of detail and a lot of paperwork. A future homeowner should really be prepared to meet those chal-lenges, and not get discour-aged when they potentially feel there’s a lot of red tape. It can be a really successful process, but they have to be able to meet the needs of the lender,” said Ron Cole, branch manager and loan offi cer at Eagle Home Mortgage.

Getting a loan on a ready-to-move-into tiny home can also be a challenge. For a con-ventional loan the absolute minimum size is 500 square feet, Cole said.

“The challenge is the appraisal,” he said. Appraisals work mainly by comparing a home against like properties that have recently sold.

“It’s about, can the appraiser comp it out? If they can fi nd like-size properties it’s a level playing fi eld. If not, and the appraiser tries to make big adjustments to qualify, it becomes more challenging.”

prevention education in the past year. She also said one in fi ve 11th graders reported using marijuana in the past 30 days, and 70 percent of them said marijuana is fairly easy to obtain. About 50 percent of 11th graders said they have tried marijuana, and nearly one in 10 reported using it once or twice a week.

Sheriff Curtis Landers was in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, and Thompson asked him what he is seeing from a public safety perspective in terms of consequences from the legalization of recreational marijuana.

“It’s hard to say right now, it’s still early,” replied Land-ers. “We can’t argue with those statistics (from public health) because those are something we defi nitely are seeing, with the youth involved. And I think youth programs are defi nitely where we want to concentrate a portion of our resources.”

Landers did say drug-re-lated motor vehicle crashes are up statewide, “from what I’m hearing from Oregon State Police and other partners out there. That’s the No. 1 concern I would have right now as far as law enforcement goes.”

Landers added, “The other thing I should talk about … marijuana is oftentimes con-sidered a gateway drug to others, and we know that use of heroin and methamphet-amine has skyrocketed, espe-cially the opioids. It’s causing havoc on society right now.”

Fields said public health is hoping to educate young people about the harm that marijuana use can cause. She agreed it is a gateway drug and yet, “the perception of harm right now is really, really low for marijuana. Teens just don’t think that it’s harmful, they don’t think it’s addictive, they don’t think it’s going to have long-lasting eff ects on their brain function. So raising that perception of harm is so important.”

Thompson said if the county gets involved in funding this education and prevention

eff ort, he would like to see the cities within Lincoln County involved, as well.

“More money (from mari-juana taxes) goes to cities than it does to counties,” he said. “We supply public health, but then we’re expected to take the full load of this. I think the cities should come up with at least an equal amount so we’re not funding the whole thing on our backs with what little money we get.”

Fields said, “We’d love to get additional funds from the cit-ies because the vast majority of dispensaries are in the cities. I think there’s only three within the unincorporated areas of the county. That’s kind of a drop in the bucket of these taxes that are being collected.”

Commissioner Bill Hall said, “If we do go in this direction with these funds, I think at least making an ask of the cit-ies couldn’t hurt, and if some of them say yes, then the more funds that we can devote to this eff ort the better. Preven-tion is the thing we always talk about but we always under-fund. It always slips to the last place on our priority list.”

Fields agreed. “It’s hard to justify putting large sums towards prevention some-times because there’s a ‘now’ problem that we want to address. But really, we’re lowering the chronic disease burden down the road, we’re

lowering the burden on the jail system down the road, we’re lowering the burden on law enforcement when we invest in prevention.”

County Commission Chair-man Doug Hunt said, “I think we’re dealing with two issues. No.1, we’re dealing with how we spend the money, but we’re also dealing with trying to set a policy as to how these funds in general should be spent.”

Hunt said he is fully in favor of funding education and pre-vention. “I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg as far as the social problems that we’re going to be dealing with. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s have a budget process that says we support this program. Let’s work with the cities, ask them

to support the programs, and then allocate an appropriate amount of money so we’re not under-funding it.”

Belmont said this topic can be discussed with the variouscity councils when the countycommission holds its annual joint-work sessions with each one over the coming months. Belmont also said he would work with personnel from Lincoln County Health And Human Services “because I can already anticipate the questions we’re going to get from the cities — ‘what do we get for our dollars?’ We’re going to have to have some pretty specifi c ideas of what services we’ll provide and at what levels for what dollar amounts.”

A jar of marijuana is seen here on display at a dispensary in Depoe Bay in November of 2017. (Photos by Nathan Howard)

MARIJUANAContinued from page 1

Lincoln County is trying to determine how best to spend the revenue from recreational marijuana taxes. The county recently received its second distribution from the state to-talling $41,800.

A6 News-Times • Newport, OR Friday, January 19, 2018

TINY HOMES

Potential housing fi x faces hurdles

BY JOAN BROWNOf the News-Times

NEWPORT — As some tout tiny homes as a means for aff ordable housing, oth-ers argue they don’t off er a solution.

“The tiny home, there’s nothing categorically wrong with it, except what we’re see-ing is because it’s such a fad of tiny homes it’s kind of like the wild west out there,” said Onno Husing, director of Lin-coln County Department of Planning and Development. “A lot of these so-called tiny homes, who knows where they’re manufactured. They’re not being inspected, they’re not being built to building code standards.”

He’s had to tell people they can’t build a tiny home, but it’s not because of the size — it’s because of the zoning or the plans failing to meet building standards.

“Oregon has a strict land use system, and there are large parts of the county that are zoned for agricul-ture and timber. And that’s one of the reasons it looks so great around here, is that you don’t have sprawl everywhere. You just can’t build what you want, where you want,” Hus-ing said.

“Building codes are spe-cially designed to make sure people don’t die in fi res, and that they’re safe, and that the (home) is well constructed. That’s the whole point, is to protect life and property. Building codes are grounded in long-term experience.”

Architect Melica Dedijer, who lives and works out of her home in Waldport, said she is very interested in tiny homes. She is currently working on speculative tiny home designs that visually match with the environment and work with the natural setting.

“As an architect everything has to be to code,” she said. “There is additional value of having a design.”

In 1995 Dedijer and her ex-husband designed a tiny home in Yachats on Kings Road, in which she also served as the general con-tractor. In October 1995 that home won the Newport News-Times People’s Choice Award. Eventually second owners added on, but not to the original design.

“Architecture is more than just building, it gives you this added value, of space and flow,” she said. “You build within the budget then you give them something more.”

But even if zoning and plans are approved and the per-square-foot price is reason-able, getting a loan for a tiny home may be problematic.

“A construction loan requires a lot of detail and a lot of paperwork. A future homeowner should really be prepared to meet those chal-lenges, and not get discour-aged when they potentially feel there’s a lot of red tape. It can be a really successful process, but they have to be able to meet the needs of the lender,” said Ron Cole, branch manager and loan offi cer at Eagle Home Mortgage.

Getting a loan on a ready-to-move-into tiny home can also be a challenge. For a con-ventional loan the absolute minimum size is 500 square feet, Cole said.

“The challenge is the appraisal,” he said. Appraisals work mainly by comparing a home against like properties that have recently sold.

“It’s about, can the appraiser comp it out? If they can fi nd like-size properties it’s a level playing fi eld. If not, and the appraiser tries to make big adjustments to qualify, it becomes more challenging.”

prevention education in the past year. She also said one in fi ve 11th graders reported using marijuana in the past 30 days, and 70 percent of them said marijuana is fairly easy to obtain. About 50 percent of 11th graders said they have tried marijuana, and nearly one in 10 reported using it once or twice a week.

Sheriff Curtis Landers was in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, and Thompson asked him what he is seeing from a public safety perspective in terms of consequences from the legalization of recreational marijuana.

“It’s hard to say right now, it’s still early,” replied Land-ers. “We can’t argue with those statistics (from public health) because those are something we defi nitely are seeing, with the youth involved. And I think youth programs are defi nitely where we want to concentrate a portion of our resources.”

Landers did say drug-re-lated motor vehicle crashes are up statewide, “from what I’m hearing from Oregon State Police and other partners out there. That’s the No. 1 concern I would have right now as far as law enforcement goes.”

Landers added, “The other thing I should talk about … marijuana is oftentimes con-sidered a gateway drug to others, and we know that use of heroin and methamphet-amine has skyrocketed, espe-cially the opioids. It’s causing havoc on society right now.”

Fields said public health is hoping to educate young people about the harm that marijuana use can cause. She agreed it is a gateway drug and yet, “the perception of harm right now is really, really low for marijuana. Teens just don’t think that it’s harmful, they don’t think it’s addictive, they don’t think it’s going to have long-lasting eff ects on their brain function. So raising that perception of harm is so important.”

Thompson said if the county gets involved in funding this education and prevention

eff ort, he would like to see the cities within Lincoln County involved, as well.

“More money (from mari-juana taxes) goes to cities than it does to counties,” he said. “We supply public health, but then we’re expected to take the full load of this. I think the cities should come up with at least an equal amount so we’re not funding the whole thing on our backs with what little money we get.”

Fields said, “We’d love to get additional funds from the cit-ies because the vast majority of dispensaries are in the cities. I think there’s only three within the unincorporated areas of the county. That’s kind of a drop in the bucket of these taxes that are being collected.”

Commissioner Bill Hall said, “If we do go in this direction with these funds, I think at least making an ask of the cit-ies couldn’t hurt, and if some of them say yes, then the more funds that we can devote to this eff ort the better. Preven-tion is the thing we always talk about but we always under-fund. It always slips to the last place on our priority list.”

Fields agreed. “It’s hard to justify putting large sums towards prevention some-times because there’s a ‘now’ problem that we want to address. But really, we’re lowering the chronic disease burden down the road, we’re

lowering the burden on the jail system down the road, we’re lowering the burden on law enforcement when we invest in prevention.”

County Commission Chair-man Doug Hunt said, “I think we’re dealing with two issues. No.1, we’re dealing with how we spend the money, but we’re also dealing with trying to set a policy as to how these funds in general should be spent.”

Hunt said he is fully in favor of funding education and pre-vention. “I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg as far as the social problems that we’re going to be dealing with. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s have a budget process that says we support this program. Let’s work with the cities, ask them

to support the programs, and then allocate an appropriate amount of money so we’re not under-funding it.”

Belmont said this topic can be discussed with the variouscity councils when the countycommission holds its annual joint-work sessions with each one over the coming months. Belmont also said he would work with personnel from Lincoln County Health And Human Services “because I can already anticipate the questions we’re going to get from the cities — ‘what do we get for our dollars?’ We’re going to have to have some pretty specifi c ideas of what services we’ll provide and at what levels for what dollar amounts.”

A jar of marijuana is seen here on display at a dispensary in Depoe Bay in November of 2017. (Photos by Nathan Howard)

MARIJUANAContinued from page 1

Lincoln County is trying to determine how best to spend the revenue from recreational marijuana taxes. The county recently received its second distribution from the state to-talling $41,800.

A6 News-Times • Newport, OR Friday, January 19, 2018

TINY HOMES

Potential housing fi x faces hurdles

BY JOAN BROWNOf the News-Times

NEWPORT — As some tout tiny homes as a means for aff ordable housing, oth-ers argue they don’t off er a solution.

“The tiny home, there’s nothing categorically wrong with it, except what we’re see-ing is because it’s such a fad of tiny homes it’s kind of like the wild west out there,” said Onno Husing, director of Lin-coln County Department of Planning and Development. “A lot of these so-called tiny homes, who knows where they’re manufactured. They’re not being inspected, they’re not being built to building code standards.”

He’s had to tell people they can’t build a tiny home, but it’s not because of the size — it’s because of the zoning or the plans failing to meet building standards.

“Oregon has a strict land use system, and there are large parts of the county that are zoned for agricul-ture and timber. And that’s one of the reasons it looks so great around here, is that you don’t have sprawl everywhere. You just can’t build what you want, where you want,” Hus-ing said.

“Building codes are spe-cially designed to make sure people don’t die in fi res, and that they’re safe, and that the (home) is well constructed. That’s the whole point, is to protect life and property. Building codes are grounded in long-term experience.”

Architect Melica Dedijer, who lives and works out of her home in Waldport, said she is very interested in tiny homes. She is currently working on speculative tiny home designs that visually match with the environment and work with the natural setting.

“As an architect everything has to be to code,” she said. “There is additional value of having a design.”

In 1995 Dedijer and her ex-husband designed a tiny home in Yachats on Kings Road, in which she also served as the general con-tractor. In October 1995 that home won the Newport News-Times People’s Choice Award. Eventually second owners added on, but not to the original design.

“Architecture is more than just building, it gives you this added value, of space and flow,” she said. “You build within the budget then you give them something more.”

But even if zoning and plans are approved and the per-square-foot price is reason-able, getting a loan for a tiny home may be problematic.

“A construction loan requires a lot of detail and a lot of paperwork. A future homeowner should really be prepared to meet those chal-lenges, and not get discour-aged when they potentially feel there’s a lot of red tape. It can be a really successful process, but they have to be able to meet the needs of the lender,” said Ron Cole, branch manager and loan offi cer at Eagle Home Mortgage.

Getting a loan on a ready-to-move-into tiny home can also be a challenge. For a con-ventional loan the absolute minimum size is 500 square feet, Cole said.

“The challenge is the appraisal,” he said. Appraisals work mainly by comparing a home against like properties that have recently sold.

“It’s about, can the appraiser comp it out? If they can fi nd like-size properties it’s a level playing fi eld. If not, and the appraiser tries to make big adjustments to qualify, it becomes more challenging.”

prevention education in the past year. She also said one in fi ve 11th graders reported using marijuana in the past 30 days, and 70 percent of them said marijuana is fairly easy to obtain. About 50 percent of 11th graders said they have tried marijuana, and nearly one in 10 reported using it once or twice a week.

Sheriff Curtis Landers was in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, and Thompson asked him what he is seeing from a public safety perspective in terms of consequences from the legalization of recreational marijuana.

“It’s hard to say right now, it’s still early,” replied Land-ers. “We can’t argue with those statistics (from public health) because those are something we defi nitely are seeing, with the youth involved. And I think youth programs are defi nitely where we want to concentrate a portion of our resources.”

Landers did say drug-re-lated motor vehicle crashes are up statewide, “from what I’m hearing from Oregon State Police and other partners out there. That’s the No. 1 concern I would have right now as far as law enforcement goes.”

Landers added, “The other thing I should talk about … marijuana is oftentimes con-sidered a gateway drug to others, and we know that use of heroin and methamphet-amine has skyrocketed, espe-cially the opioids. It’s causing havoc on society right now.”

Fields said public health is hoping to educate young people about the harm that marijuana use can cause. She agreed it is a gateway drug and yet, “the perception of harm right now is really, really low for marijuana. Teens just don’t think that it’s harmful, they don’t think it’s addictive, they don’t think it’s going to have long-lasting eff ects on their brain function. So raising that perception of harm is so important.”

Thompson said if the county gets involved in funding this education and prevention

eff ort, he would like to see the cities within Lincoln County involved, as well.

“More money (from mari-juana taxes) goes to cities than it does to counties,” he said. “We supply public health, but then we’re expected to take the full load of this. I think the cities should come up with at least an equal amount so we’re not funding the whole thing on our backs with what little money we get.”

Fields said, “We’d love to get additional funds from the cit-ies because the vast majority of dispensaries are in the cities. I think there’s only three within the unincorporated areas of the county. That’s kind of a drop in the bucket of these taxes that are being collected.”

Commissioner Bill Hall said, “If we do go in this direction with these funds, I think at least making an ask of the cit-ies couldn’t hurt, and if some of them say yes, then the more funds that we can devote to this eff ort the better. Preven-tion is the thing we always talk about but we always under-fund. It always slips to the last place on our priority list.”

Fields agreed. “It’s hard to justify putting large sums towards prevention some-times because there’s a ‘now’ problem that we want to address. But really, we’re lowering the chronic disease burden down the road, we’re

lowering the burden on the jail system down the road, we’re lowering the burden on law enforcement when we invest in prevention.”

County Commission Chair-man Doug Hunt said, “I think we’re dealing with two issues. No.1, we’re dealing with how we spend the money, but we’re also dealing with trying to set a policy as to how these funds in general should be spent.”

Hunt said he is fully in favor of funding education and pre-vention. “I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg as far as the social problems that we’re going to be dealing with. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s have a budget process that says we support this program. Let’s work with the cities, ask them

to support the programs, and then allocate an appropriate amount of money so we’re not under-funding it.”

Belmont said this topic can be discussed with the variouscity councils when the countycommission holds its annual joint-work sessions with each one over the coming months. Belmont also said he would work with personnel from Lincoln County Health And Human Services “because I can already anticipate the questions we’re going to get from the cities — ‘what do we get for our dollars?’ We’re going to have to have some pretty specifi c ideas of what services we’ll provide and at what levels for what dollar amounts.”

A jar of marijuana is seen here on display at a dispensary in Depoe Bay in November of 2017. (Photos by Nathan Howard)

MARIJUANAContinued from page 1

Lincoln County is trying to determine how best to spend the revenue from recreational marijuana taxes. The county recently received its second distribution from the state to-talling $41,800.