Depoe Bay council approves Phase 2 zone change for Hills of Depoe Bay; clears small commercial parcel for observation tower

The Depoe Bay City Council voted to approve a zone change that applies a planned-development overlay to Phase 2 of the Hills of Depoe Bay master plan and to rezone a small parcel for commercial use to accommodate a planned observation tower and its parking. The council directed staff to prepare findings and then adopted the implementing ordinance; the ordinance takes effect under the city—s standard timeline (30 days).

The action followed a public hearing in which the city—s contract planner and the applicant—s engineer summarized the request and answered council questions. "The request tonight is simply to apply the plan-development zoning designation to the Phase 2 portion of the Depot Hills master plan area," said Zach Pels, the city—s contract planner, describing the proposal and the single code criterion the council needed to consider: whether the change is consistent with the master plan for the area.

The applicant seeks to extend the R-2/PD designation already applied to Phase 1 across the remainder of Phase 2 and to convert roughly a quarter-acre at the top of the site from R-2/PD to C-1 to accommodate the observation tower and an adjacent parking area. "Based off our…