Sean C. Morgan
Northwest Rose Historians
will plant a descendant of a rose
bush Samuel R. Nothiger brought
to the United States from Switzerland
in 1884 at the East Linn Museum
within the next few weeks.
Kathleen McMullen, cofounder
of the organization, met
with Daryl and Carollin Nothiger
of Sweet Home; Jerri Morse of Eagle
Creek, located near Estacada;
and Gail Gregory of East Linn Museum
Friday afternoon to discuss
the rose.
“It was an illegal alien when
it got here,” Nothiger said of the
rose.
Nothiger is the grandson of
Samuel R. Nothiger and a secondgeneration
American. His grandfather
settled around Green Peter,
went to California for nearly a decade
and then returned to the Sweet
Home area.
“We are suggesting that maybe
they would like to have a rose
planted somewhere around here,”Morse said. The rose is a cutting
from the original Nothiger family
rose, a moss rose, brought from
Switzerland.
The Rose Historians have already
planted a cutting from the
Nothiger Rose and another rose
from another Oregon family at the
Pioneer Courthouse in Portland.
The moss rose is often found
in high elevations and tolerates the
cold well, Morse said.
Daryl Nothiger, left, meets with, from left, Gail Gregory of East Linn Museum, Carollin Nothiger, Jerri Morse
and Kathleen McMullen of Northwest Rose Historians.
The roses were taken from
Charlie Nothiger’s place off North Planning commissioners
recommended a new variance
ordinance for approval by the City
Council 4-0 on Monday night during
its regular meeting.
“We threw this ordinance out,
pretty much,” said Community
Development Director Carol Lewis.
Basically, the Planning Commissions
started over. Here and there, the
proposed ordinance retains some of
the same language, but it’s almost
entirely new.
The process remains the same,
she said, and it matches what the
Planning Commission is doing now.
The new ordinance adds
application requirements, Lewis
said. Those did not exist previously
and commissioners had problems
understanding what an applicant was
planning.
“What we’re getting at here
is show us this stuff so we can see
what you’re trying to do,” Lewis
said. The ordinance now spells out
what materials must come with an
application.
The criteria have changed substantially, although the purpose
is similar, Lewis said. Under the
existing ordinance, the criteria
simply must be considered, and then
the Planning Commission can make
a choice regardless of whether the
request meets them. Under the new
ordinance, the variance application
will need to meet the criteria.
Current criteria permit
a variance for exceptional or
extraordinary circumstances applied
to a property, based on lot size, shape,
topography or other circumstance.
The variance must be necessary to
preserve a property right and cannot
be materially detrimental to the
purposes of the code or property
in the vicinity. It also must be the
minimum necessary to alleviate the
hardship.
The new criteria say that the
resulting development may not be
detrimental to public health or safety,
conflict with the Comprehensive
Plan, be the minimum needed for
reasonable use of the property and
be consistent with the purposes of
the zone. The cumulative effect of
variances must still result in a project
consistent with the purpose of the
zone, and negative impacts from
the variance can be mitigated to the
extent it is practical. “You do this enough, you see
you’re not really reading these words
(the current criteria) anyway,” Lewis
said. “You’re looking at these kinds
of things (the new criteria).”
Along with the criteria, there is
a human factor too, Lewis said. The
new ordinance allows the commission
to take into account “considerations,”
such as the economic impact on an
applicant if a variance is denied; the
physical impacts the development
could have with noise, traffic and
more; preservation of native tree
species; and even the aesthetics of
the proposal.
The commission cannot
approve a variance based on such
considerations, Lewis said, but it can
help the commission figure out how
an application may fit the criteria.
The new ordinance allows Lewis
to sign off on single-year extensions
of variances, and the commission can sign off on two-year extensions
as long as there are no changes to the
plan, Lewis said.
In addition to variance
revisions, the commission approved
a recommendation to prohibit the
burial of human remains on private
property.
Currently, state law allows
individuals to bury human remains
on their property with the permission
of a Planning Commission, Lewis
said. Sweet Home doesn’t have
a process in place, and following
discussion in work sessions in
recent months, the commission
suggests simply prohibiting such
burials.
Among the reasons, the small
size of property raises health concerns
about burials in proximity to wells
and gardens. Visitation easements
could devalue property.
Future subdivisions of larger lots could be problematic if there
were burial grounds that required
adjusting infrastructure and lots
to protect them, limiting buildable
area.
Natural resource areas, such as
wetlands, floodplains and riparian
zones could also be negatively
impacted by it.
Attending the Planning
Commission meeting were
commissioners Alan Culver, Greg
Stephens, Eva Jurney and Chairman
Henry Wolthuis. Absent were Anay
Hausner, Lance Gatchell and Michael
E. Adams.
In other business, the
commission:
n Approved several variances
for Northern Investments to site a
24-foot manufactured home at 1901
19th Ave. Among the variances were
the size of the home, 24 feet wide,
and the 3/12 pitch of the roof.