The council vacated, or abandoned, this segment of Jefferson street despite the concerns of the owner of the house on the corner. Helping Hands is on the right.
Three members of the Albany City Council plus the mayor Wednesday pushed through a move to vacate or abandon a short section of Jefferson Street, an action the Helping Hands homeless shelter needs to expand.
As authorized by the council at a work session March 7, the vacation of the street right-of-way was initiated by the city itself. This saved the shelter the trouble of getting approval of all property owners affected, as well as the expense of preparing the application plus the $2,772 application fee.
These circumstances seemed to be news to council members. The question of fees and expenses, or just why the city staff offered to be the applicant, didn’t come up in March when the council told the staff to go ahead.
The owner of the house at the corner of Jefferson and Ninth Avenue, Tina Vanderburg, testified against the vacation at a public hearing two weeks ago. She had concerns about parking and trees in front of her house, which tax records show she has owned since 2010. She showed the council photos of the conditions in the open area outside her house, with homeless people camping or hanging out there.
Helping Hands has received planning commisson approval of a conditional use permit to add 30 beds and office space. For this expansion, the city says the shelter needs more parking, and the space yielded by vacating Jefferson Street would help meet that requirement.
With the street is vacated, adjoining property owners will get half of the 66-foot-wide right-of-way. But the city will retain an access easement 26 feet wide down the middle of the 150-foot-long former street, leaving the owners on each side 20 feet of additional private property.
There are three houses on the west side of the street. One is the Vanderburg property. The other two are owned by Helping Hands, which bought one for $100,000 in 2017 and the other for $165,000 last year. The east side is the homeless shelter.
Since the public hearing two weeks ago, it has been reported that the administrator and two other staff members of Helping Hands have handed in their resignations.
With that in mind, on Wednesday three council members — Bessie Johnson, Dick Olsen and Matilda Novak — wanted to withdraw the vacation or postpone action on it. But Ray Kopczynski, Marilyn Smith and Stacey Bartholomew voted to go ahead and approve it, and Mayor Alex Johnson II sided with them.
As a historical note, this section, the 800 block of Southeast Jefferson, became a dead-end street when the Oregon Highway Commission built the Pacific Boulevard viaduct, including two bridges, in 1939, starting in January and finishing before the year was out. (hh)
That street sign will be obsolete as this section of Jefferson ceases to be a public street.
Who is now responsible for the upkeep? Is the Vanderburg property also responsible?
What street upkeep?
With the street is vacated, adjoining property owners will get half of the 66-foot-wide right-of-way. But the city will retain an access easement 26 feet wide down the middle of the 150-foot-long former street, leaving the owners on each side 20 feet of additional private property.