Lincoln City moving forward with Villages at Cascade Head development

It began as a key economic development driver for Lincoln City, but the city’s $2.5 million purchase in 2012 of 375 acres of the Villages at Cascade Head have been sitting idle following the COVID pandemic and the procedural process.

“The properties at the Villages is a very substantial part of our buildable lands, and it is also close to, and partially includes city and public utilities,” said former Lincoln City Planning and Community Development Director Richard Townsend, now acting as the city’s interim director. “So we want to encourage the area to be developed while still protecting the important parts of it. That’s largely been done already with re-zoning.”

Development challenges

Townsend said while the city wants to encourage development, “the way the conditions of approval were originally made back in the ’90s have largely functioned, unfortunately, to discourage development and have created uncertainty and obligations that developers seem to shy away from,” he said. “The city has had the property for a long time and it hasn’t moved, so it is really just facing up to the fact that it is discouraging development. The city wants to meet the goals of why it was purchased in part to provide some affordable market-rate housing and open space.”

According to Townsend, the range of market-rate development that could best fit the Villages includes affordable housing.

“Primarily residential,” he said. “It could be small, single-family dwellings, duplexes or townhouses, or it could be apartment type housing. Probably some limited commercial, such as small markets, restaurants, and service places,” he said.

Next steps

Townsend’s charge is to go through all the existing conditions of approval that were established for the Villages over the years and looking to revise those conditions or eliminating some of them.

“That then would go before the city’s planning commission to make decisions on that,” he said. The planning commission’s decision could be pulled to the city council.

Townsend’s review process is expected to take about two to three months. Other property at the villages, approximately 40 acres owned by other interests, could also see development triggered by the review.

“There has been property there for sale for years,” he said. “Once we get things revised, the private owners will probably be moving towards getting approval for their parcels. That might encourage selling if we remove some restraints, some of the uncertainties, from the properties.”

Townsend said 175 acres of the city’s purchase at the Villages continues to remain as open space, including the popular Knoll, set aside from any development. He said the city has not funded any major infrastructure improvements at the Villages.

“The city had conducted an asphalt lift on the existing road to make it more livable and to preserve the work that had been done.” he said. “When the city bought the property, we used Open Space money, affordable housing money, and we used General Fund money.”

The city’s economic development director, Alison Robertson, said, “Developing the city-owned property within the Villages at Cascade Head development has been a priority of council since including the residential Fernwood site within the 2018 Request For Expressions of Interest development offering. There are two developers the city is under exclusive negotiating agreement with — one to develop Fernwood with housing, and one to develop the neighborhood scale commercial site. Once those developers are able to move ahead with their projects, the city will be able to discuss these projects publicly.”

“The council wishes to find the best fit to develop this property,” Lincoln City Major Susan Wahlke said.