By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – The Yachats City Council has given the go-ahead for the next step on what could be a $950,000 project to build a 350-foot boardwalk along Ocean View Drive overlooking the Yachats River.
The council voted unanimously and enthusiastically Thursday to seek and negotiate detailed engineering designs for the boardwalk. Those designs will be used to better estimate the cost of the project, seek bids and award a construction contract.
A team of Yachats volunteers, a Newport engineering company and streets supervisor Rick McClung have been sketching out and then refining plans for the boardwalk for a year, following encouragement from the city council as far back as 2017.
On Thursday it made its first presentation to the council since last August, hoping to get approval for the engineering and design so the city can get everything lined up this year and to build it in 2023.
“There’s a lot of moving parts here,” design team member Loren Dickinson told the council during the presentation to warn about potential or unanticipated delays. “But it’s not a long project; it can be an easy (construction) project. The disruption to the community will be much less than the Highway 101 project.”
But the uncertainties – design, estimates, bids, permits and grants — before construction can actually begin are the reason to launch the engineering and design process soon, said design team member Bob Langley.
Civil West Engineering of Newport was the only company that responded to requests for preliminary work and is expected to do the final engineering and cost estimates. It also offered to write grant applications, with the help of the design team, to help fund the project.
The city already has $125,000 allocated in its 2021-22 budget for engineering.
Council members had only a few questions during the presentation, which included a timeline, a preliminary design and cost estimate, an explanation and justification for materials, and possible ways to fund it.
The presentation “made it hard to turn down,” said Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey. “We needed the information to justify what we’re doing … it’s a big project and a lot of money.”
While the city has plenty of money from its lodging taxes and the 804 Trail settlement fund that can be used for projects, design team member Joanne Kittel said there are ample opportunities for grants. These include Oregon State Parks and Recreation, Travel Oregon, the Oregon Coast Visitor Association, and the Oregon Department of Transportation, and even $26,000 already donated to View the Future, a Yachats nonprofit, Kittel said.
“A lot of work went into this,” Kittel said, “and I think it shows today.”
Only broken stretch of trail through Yachats
The first phase of the boardwalk project had already received unanimous approval from the city’s Parks & Commons Commission, which has been getting regular updates from the design team volunteers.
The boardwalk would replace a gravel path along the narrowest portion of Ocean View Drive between Beach Street and Highway 101. The path is part of the 804 Trail and the state-recognized Oregon Coast Trail and is the only broken, unsafe link of the Coast trail through Yachats.
Initially there were two designs under consideration. The first was a series of large, interlocking concrete blocks forming a retaining wall to support a concrete sidewalk or wider gravel path. The second was a pier and post system to hold up a boardwalk made of composite material.
The design group recommended that the pier, post and boardwalk would be the least invasive, especially to not disturb possible archeological sites along the river and not running afoul of other state or federal restrictions.
That design also allows for a viewing platform with seating that extends 18-22 feet out from the boardwalk.
The proposal calls for the boardwalk to start at a curb that would run along the edge of Ocean View Drive’s asphalt. The boardwalk would be eight feet wide and made of composite material held up with composite posts. Forty-four concrete footings eight feet apart would be built into the hillside.
The early cost estimate includes a higher-than-usual 30 percent contingency because of the many unknowns a contractor could face.
But there are still undecided issues. The current proposal does not include developing the east end of the trail where it runs into five city-controlled parking spaces. That easternmost section leads to the former Landmark restaurant site that is on the market for $525,000 – and which the Parks & Commons Commission has urged the city to buy.
A second phase of the project would involve improving the trail – but nothing as extensive as the boardwalk – between Beach Street and Yachats State Park.
