🚰 4 Units, 1 Lot? Multiplex Drama, Tree Fees, & STRs - White Salmon May '26 Round-Up

Enjoy the audio edition on Buzzsprout, or look for "Open Gorge" wherever you get your podcasts.

🏛 May 2026 Municipal Round-Up

Agencies Covered: White Salmon City Council, Planning Commission, Community Development Committee, Tree Board

The Bottom Line: Growth pains and infrastructure limits dominated the month, with sharp debates over housing density codes and shared water utilities, while civic committees pushed forward on heritage recognition and summer event planning.

The Vibe: Analytical and cautious. Officials and residents are heavily scrutinizing the long-term liabilities of new developments and aging infrastructure, demanding clearer timelines and tighter definitions.

🔎 What Changed:

• City Council updated committee rules and expanded the Community Development Committee to five members.
• The Tree Board finalized the framework for a fee-in-lieu ordinance for developers.
• The Community Development Committee moved to eliminate park reservation fees to reduce administrative burdens.

⚠ What Escalated:

• A proposed four-unit development on Wyers St. sparked resident pushback over parking, short-term rentals, and definitions of what constitutes a "multiplex."
• Snohomish Place residents voiced deep frustration over a lack of communication and timelines regarding major water line replacements.
• Public testimony called out Republic Services for reliability issues and missed garbage and recycling collections.

🧭 What’s Next:

• The Planning Commission begins a formal review of short-term rental policies on June 24.
• A community World Cup watch party is proposed for June 19 in Rhinegarten Park.
• The Tree Board is hunting for community donors to fund the graphic design of the White Salmon Tree Walk map.

White Salmon City Council

🚰 Public Works & Infrastructure

• Approved a $38,000 consultant agreement with Anderson Perry & Associates for design and engineering on the Stauch & Snohomish Water Line Replacement project.
• Approved a $15,937.52 change order for the Tapani Inc. Transmission Main Replacement Phase IIA for additional restrained gaskets.
• Residents of Snohomish Place attended the May 20 meeting to protest the lack of timelines and milestones in the Anderson Perry contract.
• Public comment highlighted specific resident fears about surface restoration, impacts on unpaved alleyways, and the status of private service lines.

Major infrastructure upgrades are necessary, but the gap between engineering contracts and community communication is causing visible friction. Residents living in the immediate impact zone of the Snohomish project feel left in the dark about how construction will physically impact their daily lives, properties, and alleyways. The council is currently balancing the technical necessity of securing engineering consultants against the immediate public relations challenge of keeping affected homeowners informed before excavators show up.

🏛 City Committees & Governance

• Held a public hearing and adopted Ordinance 2026-05-1187 amending WSMC 2.20.010.
• Formalized the expansion of the Community Development Committee to five members.
• Clarified Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) attendance and public comment rules for advisory committees.
• Finalized an Adult Probation Interlocal Agreement with Klickitat County to cap cost-sharing.

The city is drawing a hard legal line on public participation. By formally defining the difference between statutory boards and advisory committees under the OPMA, the council is setting strict boundaries on when public comment is actually required by law. While the city frames this as necessary administrative housekeeping to prevent procedural headaches, the practical result is that residents are now explicitly relegated to an "observer only" role during committee brainstorming sessions, unless a committee chair specifically decides to let them speak. It is a move that protects the city's meeting efficiency, but it legally strips away the guaranteed right of residents to weigh in during the earliest stages of local policy-making.

🔥 Wildfire Preparedness & Waste Management

• Mayor Keethler highlighted the launch of the Klickitat Wildfire Ready Hub (wildfirereadyklickitat.org), developed with Mount Adams Resource Stewards.
• Public comment shifted focus to public health, with residents urging the city to renegotiate its waste management contract with Republic Services due to ongoing reliability issues and missed collections.

White Salmon Planning Commission

🏘 Housing, Land Use & Development

• Reviewed a Type II Site and Building Plan for a four-unit multiplex development at 130 SE Wyers St on a non-conforming lot in the R2 zone.
• Public commenters pushed back heavily on parking, density, tree removal, and alleyway paving requirements.
• Commissioners questioned whether two duplexes connected by a breezeway legally qualify as one multiplex structure.
• Requested formal stormwater runoff calculations from the city engineer.
• Deferred the vote twice, moving the discussion to a future meeting.

The Wyers Street proposal is exposing the friction between statewide mandates for housing density and legacy municipal codes. Developers are utilizing breezeways to legally connect separate structures to meet "multiplex" definitions, maximizing unit density on small lots to meet market demand. This practice frustrates neighbors who feel the scale of the buildings violates the traditional spirit of the R2 zone. The commission is hitting the brakes to ensure they don't set an accidental precedent, recognizing that approving this specific structural orientation will open up more encounters with new pushes for density and affordability across the city.

"There are two different buildings on the building plan, but that might not be as important from a zoning perspective... [the zoning and building codes] often use a lot of the same terms but don't mean them in the same way." — City Planner Rowan Fairfield

🚰 Shared Utilities

• Continued debates regarding the legality and wisdom of allowing adjacent properties to share water systems and utility taps.
• Council Member David Lindley cautioned against the practice.

While sharing a water tap might save property owners money on initial installation, the city sees a massive long-term liability. Staff made it clear that shared utilities create administrative nightmares regarding who pays the bill, who is responsible for maintenance, and how to prevent cross-contamination if one property mismanages their lines. The city is signaling a hard line: individual metering will remain the standard.

🛑 Short-Term Rentals

• Testimony regarding the Wyers St. multiplex raised fears that the new units would simply be converted into vacation rentals rather than housing local families.
• The Commission agreed to formally begin reviewing the city's short-term rental policies on June 24.

⚠️ Editor's Note: The "Missing Middle" Housing Push & STR Fears

The Wyers Street conflict is a localized symptom of a statewide shift colliding with a mathematically verifiable local crisis.

• The Local Crisis: The 2024 WAGAP Community Needs Assessment identified the lack of affordable housing as the region’s number one community need. Up to 40% of local households are "cost-burdened," paying more than 30% of their income toward housing.
• The Affordability Gap: The 2023 White Salmon Housing Needs Analysis noted median home listing prices hitting $869,000. Purchasing a home here requires an income of over $140,000, drastically higher than the city's median household income of roughly $63,000. Because of this gap, less than 10% of the people who work in White Salmon can afford to live within city limits.
• The Legislative Pressure: In 2023, the state passed sweeping legislation (most notably HB 1110) to legalize "Middle Housing" statewide. While White Salmon's population exempts it from the strictest HB 1110 mandates, the city is still bound by the Growth Management Act to actively plan for and accommodate higher-density housing.
• The Structural Hurdle: White Salmon's housing stock is currently 69% single-family detached homes. Developers are responding to the market demand and state pressure by utilizing architectural features, like breezeways, to build dense "multiplexes" under existing codes. The city is now caught in the middle, forced to tighten building definitions to address infrastructure concerns while still meeting the state mandate to build more housing.

As we've covered in other editions of this newsletter, a well-intentioned but destructive anxiety may risk paralyzing this statewide goal of the development of "missing middle" housing: the fear of the Airbnb. Leading research proves the threat is overblown. A massive survey by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center found that despite immense community pushback, only 8% of new Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are actually used as short-term rentals. Most are occupied by long term renters or family members.

Ironically, preemptively banning STRs to "protect" neighborhood character may actively deepen the crisis. An analysis from the James Madison Institute, demonstrated that short term rental bans cause all ADU permits to plummet by an astounding 16.5%. Like many towns in the Gorge, White Salmon will need to grapple with some residents' perspectives that building no additional units in a housing crisis is a safer option than building any units, some of which could have a use they do not agree with.

White Salmon Community Development Committee

🎉 Civic Events & Heritage Recognitions

• Recognized Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
• Drafted a resolution to shift Mental Health Awareness Month to August to avoid overlapping with Arab-American Heritage Month.
• Drafted a resolution to update the language of Hispanic Heritage Month to "Latino/a Heritage Month" to better reflect local agricultural and immigrant communities.
• Began logistical planning for a localized USA 250th anniversary acknowledgment and a community World Cup watch party in Rhinegarten Park on June 19.

Rather than rubber-stamping generic national heritage months, the CDC is tailoring the calendar to fit the specific demographics and community rhythms of White Salmon and the broader Gorge, ensuring that recognitions are visible and culturally accurate. We look forward to sharing and celebrating along with them.

🌳 Park Facilities & Fees

• Agreed to draft a resolution asking the City Council to eliminate park reservation fees.

The city found that because park reservation fees are refunded in almost all instances, continuing to collect them creates unnecessary administrative work for city staff. Eliminating the fee removes unnecessary paperwork.

White Salmon Tree Board

🌲 Housing & Tree Code Fees

• Finalized the structure and framework for a fee-in-lieu ordinance.
• The policy will require developers to pay into a dedicated tree fund if they cannot meet on-site replanting requirements.
• A percentage of these incoming funds will be explicitly earmarked for Tree Board education and public outreach.

The Tree Board is securing its financial future by linking it directly to local development. By establishing a fee-in-lieu program, the city guarantees that when trees are inevitably lost to housing and commercial construction, the financial penalty will directly fund civic replanting and environmental education.

"An astute tree board like ours [will notice when funds are received]... leading to a robust piggy bank." — Board Member Karen Black Jenkins

💰 Budget & Grants

• Acknowledged a zero-dollar budget allocation for the White Salmon Tree Walk graphic design and GIS mapping (estimated at $500).
• Discussed the difficulty of accessing municipal lodging tax funds, which are largely tied up by the Wildflower Festival.
• Pivoted strategy to court direct project donations from local fraternal and service organizations like the Lions Club, Oddfellows, and Masons.

🌳 Public Facilities Installations

• Approved Pioneer Park as the planting location for the Masonic Lodge's donated Liberty Tree, marking the U.S. 250th anniversary.
• Evaluated Rheingarten and Pioneer Parks for the future placement of the 5-year Hiroshima Peace Tree seedlings currently being propagated at Apple Core Farm in Odell.

How to Join & Learn More

The City of White Salmon posts all meeting agendas, packets, and Zoom links on their official website at whitesalmonwa.gov.

• City Council: Meets the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month at 6:00 PM.
• Planning Commission: Normally meets the 2nd and 4th Wednesday. Note: The next meeting is June 24.
• Tree Board: Meets the 2nd Monday of the month.

Documenter notes used in the creation of this Dispatch are available for republishing under Creative Commons license CC by 4.0. With thanks to Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local: https://upliftlocal.news/columbia-gorge/columbia-gorge-documenters/

---

---

🍉 Free Local Kids' Activities - Your Summer Survival Guide:

If you're already stressing about how to keep the kids fed, cool, and busy this summer without draining your bank account, we’ve got you. Over at Open Gorge, we’ve gathered all the fragmented county calendars and library flyers into one mobile-friendly list. You can browse the Free and Low Cost Summer Survival Guide at OpenGorge.org/Summer.

Is there an event or ongoing offering we missed? Fill out our contact form at the bottom of the directory to help us add it!