🚜 Is the 'Ag Income Test' Protecting Land or Blocking Farm Housing? - CRGC 4/8 & 4/9

Enjoy the audio edition.

🏛 April 8 & 9, 2026 Committee Meetings

The Body: Columbia River Gorge Commission (Economic Vitality & Communications Committees)

The Bottom Line: Two consecutive missed quorums for the Economic Vitality Committee mean Gorge housing policy is currently stuck in neutral. ADU rules can't advance until enough members show up to vote.

The Vibe: Stalled out on housing, but moving fast on media rules.

🔎 What Changed

• Media Protocol: The Communications Committee advanced a 14-page "Best Practices for Media Inquiries" draft to the Executive Committee.
• Minutes Approved: The Communications Committee officially adopted its March 12, 2026, meeting summary.

⚠ What Escalated

• Procedural Paralysis: The Economic Vitality Committee failed to reach a quorum for the second meeting in a row. They could not take official action or vote on housing and land use recommendations.
• Permitting Delays: Klickitat County’s new online permitting system (Civic Access) is built but offline. The launch is waiting on the Oregon governor to sign a budget that will release funds for the software licensing fees.

🧭 What’s Next

• May 12, 2026: Next in-person full Gorge Commission meeting.
• End of 2026: Deadline for MCEDD and the Bi-State Advisory Council to finalize updates to the Columbia River Gorge Economic Vitality Plan.
• 2027 Legislative Session: Staff are gathering economic data to present to Oregon and Washington lawmakers during the upcoming long sessions.

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🏘 Housing, Land Use & Development

• Quorum Failure: The Economic Vitality Committee met on April 8 with only Chair Lach Litwer and Commissioner Steve Hockman present. Because Laura Brennan Bissell and Pah-tu Pitt were absent, the committee could not vote or take official action.
• The Math of Housing: While pushing to continue ADU discussions, Chair Litwer cited data indicating the Gorge loses roughly 1% of its housing stock annually to fires and obsolescence. He argued that if this loss rate exceeds new builds, the region is operating at a deficit. He stated the agency must examine rules that constrain housing to ensure they are meeting the mandates set by the governors of Oregon and Washington to increase housing supply.
• The "Red Herring" Argument: Chair Litwer argued to completely separate the debate over building ADUs from public fears over Short-Term Rentals (STRs). He stated that building rules and usage rules are distinct: if a use is legal, it is legal, and if it is illegal, it is illegal. To illustrate his point, Litwer noted that a resident could illegally use an ADU to manufacture methamphetamine, but the commission does not ban the construction of ADUs based on the fear of potential meth labs. He called the focus on STRs a "red herring" driven by emotion rather than policy mechanics, and asked that the committee evaluate ADUs strictly on their own merits.
• 🗣 Public Comment (The STR Rebuttal): Resident Mary Repar directly challenged Litwer's framing. She argued that operating a short-term rental is fundamentally running a commercial business, which operates differently than standard residential use. Citing the 2008 housing crash, Repar noted that equity firms and LLCs bought up housing stock to manage strictly as rentals, which severely damaged local affordability.
• 🗣 Public Comment (Public Confusion): Former Commissioner Lynn Burditt reminded the committee that the National Scenic Area Act includes specific relief valves for property owners in the highly restrictive Special Management Area (SMA). SMA owners can offer to sell their land to the Forest Service; if the Forest Service declines, the land defaults back to the less-restrictive General Management Area (GMA) guidelines. She noted the public is often unaware of these mechanisms, leading to frustration over unequal zoning rules.

Because the committee couldn't vote, the planned debate on Accessory Dwelling Units is stuck. But the lines of conflict are clearly drawn. Chair Litwer is viewing the issue through a supply-and-demand lens, arguing that the Gorge is physically losing housing stock while state mandates demand growth. He views the ADU and STR debates as entirely separate regulatory issues. Conversely, a few public commenters view new density strictly through the lens of broader debates on how STRs may or may not affect housing stock.

🚜 Agriculture & Economic Vitality

• Vital Signs Data Collection: Program Manager Sage Ebel is pulling baseline agricultural data to see how the NSA Management Plan's "agricultural income test" is actually working on the ground.
• 5-Year Plan Update: Andrew Danies from MCEDD briefed the committee on the start of the five-year update for the bi-state Economic Vitality Plan.

Staff are looking hard at the "agricultural income test." They are using the Vital Signs program to figure out if current rules actually preserve working farmland, or if they just put unnecessary blocks on farm workforce housing. This data collection matters because staff will use it to brief lawmakers in Oregon and Washington ahead of the 2027 legislative sessions, where the agency's funding and authority are regularly debated.

🗣 Emergency Management & Communications

• Media Strategy & "Strategic Silence": The Communications Committee reviewed new guidelines for interacting with the press, which include specific rules on when staff should use "strategic silence." The policy dictates that the agency will ignore opinion pieces or personal attacks, and will only issue a public response to correct explicit misinformation or factual errors about the agency's work.
• Social Media Boundaries: Executive Director Krystyna Wolniakowski clarified limits on personal social media use. If a commissioner posts about Gorge Commission business on a personal page, it becomes a public record. Commissioners are instructed not to use personal accounts to comment on agency work.
• Klickitat Permitting: Members talked about how to handle public messaging when Klickitat County's Civic Access portal finally launches, noting they need to give residents clear contact information to manage expectations across county lines.

The new media guidelines show the agency wants a tighter grip on its public messaging, moving away from off-the-cuff responses to a standardized protocol, including knowing when to stay quiet. On the operational side, Klickitat County residents waiting for the new Civic Access permitting portal will have to keep waiting. The system is built, but launch is delayed because the software licensing money is tied up in the unsigned Oregon state budget.

⚠️ Editor's Note: Correcting Misinformation

The Gorge Commission’s new media rules explicitly state the agency will publicly correct factual errors. But enforcing that rule might prove complicated, especially when the misinformation comes from a familiar voice.

During a recent interview with OPB, former Gorge Commissioner Robert Liberty discussed the current debate over Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). He told listeners: "building more of those is just more short-term rentals... people who have access to $250,000 to $300,000 to invest."

The Facts: Short-Term Rentals (STRs) are already categorically prohibited in the General Management Area (GMA) and Special Management Area (SMA) outside of the 13 exempt Urban Areas. Under the Commission’s own Management Plan, any approval for an accessory dwelling on farm or forest land explicitly mandates it cannot be used as a short-term rental.

When former commissioners broadcast inaccurate zoning rules on statewide radio, it can fuel the exact public confusion the agency says it wants to avoid, and decrease the public's confidence in the Gorge Commission and the Counties in enforcing the Gorge Management Plan. If the Commission wants to get a head start on its new mandate to correct factual errors, interviews like this one might be the place to start.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• MCEDD: Mid-Columbia Economic Development District. A bi-state organization that handles economic planning across five counties in the Gorge.
• NSA: National Scenic Area. The federally designated, bi-state zone covering the Columbia River Gorge.
• Vital Signs: A Gorge Commission program that tracks high-level data on the long-term health of the Gorge's environment and economy.
• SMA vs. GMA: The National Scenic Area is split into the General Management Area (GMA) and the Special Management Area (SMA). SMA lands are mostly overseen by the US Forest Service and have stricter visual and environmental protections.

📅 How to Join & Learn More

The full Columbia River Gorge Commission will meet next in-person on May 12, 2026.

• Meeting Materials: View the raw agendas for the [Economic Vitality Committee] and the [Communications Committee].
• Get Involved: Submit written public comments or sign up to testify at the next meeting via the [Gorge Commission Website].

Documenter notes are available for republishing under Creative Commons license CC by 4.0. With thanks to Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local.

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