We went back to the drawing board and have a new site plan that neighbors who had opposed the layout of our future store now support.
Our expansion has been in a months-long land use process including a recent appeal by three residential property owners surrounding the co-op site. Their concerns centered around Steam Whistle Way, the street that would be used to access our parking lot. While the Astoria City Council ruled on our side, we wanted to see if we could alter the plan to satisfy neighbors, avoiding an expensive and time-consuming prospect of an appeal to the state.
So in order to move the project forward we’ve worked with stakeholders to develop a new site plan that uses an alternate access to our parking lot off of 23rd street. The appellants support this option. With an agreement in place, we will return to city council to sign off on the plan at a meeting September 24.
Next steps would include completing engineering of the new building and permitting. We hope to be in our much-needed bigger new store possibly as early as next year!
Astoria Co-op Grocery submits new layout for Mill Pond store
Daily Astorian September 5, 2018