The city of Yachats is asking Lincoln County to try to sell two small residential lots along the 804 Trail bordering Aqua Vista Loop and Marine Drive.
The county used money from the 804 Trail settlement agreement to purchase the lots decades ago in order to link two sections of the popular trail along Yachats’ oceanfront.
They have sat empty since then. The City Council earlier this year wondered if they could be put on the market and to possibly help increase the amount of land available for housing or open space.
Lincoln County Counsel Wayne Belmont told the council Wednesday there should be no problem listing them for sale. But any proceeds would go back into the 804 settlement fund, he said, which still has about $120,000 in it. The council voted unanimously to do that.
Belmont said the county bought the 70-by-100-foot lot on Aqua Vista for $62,000 and its real market value is currently $61,500, according to county records. The county bought the 50-by-120-foot lot facing Marine Drive for $50,000; its real market value is $51,400.
Any sale would still preserve trail easements on the west edges of the two lots.
Belmont said the county is going through its own inventory of buildable properties – usually acquired through foreclosures – to put them back on the market to help create more housing. It recently gave two nonprofits three building lots so those organizations could develop affordable housing.
But in the case of the two Yachats lots, the county has to put them on the market and funnel any proceeds back into the 804 settlement fund.
“Hopefully they will be developed to some way to improve the housing stock in Yachats,” he said.
That was doubly good news Wednesday for the council.
The city and trail organizations are looking for ways to build a boardwalk along portions Ocean View Drive between either Beach or Pontiac streets and U.S. Highway 101 where the 804 Trail narrows and sits high above the Yachats River. But paying for it, whether through local, state or federal money, is always the question.
“I would love for Yachats to come forward with a qualifying project,” Belmont told the council. “I’d love to spend it (the settlement fund) down to nothing.”
But decisions on how and where to spend settlement money are ultimately up to the surviving members of the original Friends of the 804 Trail organization and the county, Belmont said.
