Condos on the coast is really a good deal for the town, money wise. They pay for water sewer and seldom use these utilities. They pay High taxes and the county and city benefit. And the best part, these owners are never around.
I sit on a planning commission and I know how important the measuring tape is. This looks like a screw up of the city planner and the commission never caught it. One of the questions we ask is where do you measure, from the street or from the dirt?
Condo owners won't lose and maybe will gain.

All smart growth NIMBYisim always boils down to one thing:

The view.

One property owner expects another to leave his property in it's current state subsidize their view.

A city dweller wants rural lands to remain undeveloped to preserve [subsidize] the view while driving or cycling to the mountains or beach or Goldshmidt winery.

Sam Adams wants to leave the light rail on the street [instead of burring it] for the postcard image of a "progressive, sustainable" city.

A woman in Sandy wants billboards on 26 yet the only argument against them is from out-of-towner's not wanting to see them as they drive through the area.

People like you give this blog a bad name.

I take my family camping at Honneymen State Park every summer. I always looked forward to that view of the dunes. It let us know that we had arrived our favorite place in Oregon.

The thing about public views is that they benefit everyone. They let people who don't have a lot of money enjoy a bit of their world. The ability to appreciate a great vista is a great leveler. Unfortunately, for the property rights freaks, it's a threatening concept.

Where would you have the next million or so newcomers locate? A condo jungle downtown or a condo jungle at the beach?

At least the condo jungle at the beach doesn't require tax breaks, trams, streetcars, or light rail.

Public views benefit everyone and are best left for public property. Don't want a condo jungle there? Buy up the property and develop it how you like.. just hope you don't have the likes of Metro or PDC on your back or you might be building a condo jungle anyway.

Goldshmidt winery

There never was any Goldschmidt winery. There was a Goldschmidt vineyard, but it's been sold and the name is changing.

Anthony...a winery is where you make wine, a vineyard is where you grow the grapes. If all the vineyard land is turned into condos or subdivisions, we lose our agricultural base, which, in Oregon, is a billion dollar industry employing thousands. And a beautiful place to go for thousands more on this Memorial Day weekend.

Don't want a condo jungle there? Buy up the property and develop it how you like.

I guess you aren't going to get the point.

screw people that want to own property. They are freaks. All land should benefit the public. Hail Chavez

No, that's not quite right. There is certain "property" that no one should be able to own.

Maybe it's time to go to moderated comments...

The fact that a building permit was issued is a tough one to overcome, but I would offer that it should be, if the conditions placed on the development by the PC specified certain things that in hindsight can't be accomplished with the project as it was erroneously approved. On the other hand, the developer proceeded with what he thought to be a clear approval, and would incur some financial loss if this were re-opened.

The solutiuon is clear: the condo shouldn't exceed the height intended by the conditions approved by the PC. And the city should reimburse the developer any expenses incurred to put things back into a state that will allow the project to proceed legally, including time lost.

The primary reason that condo building is blocking the view of the dunes is the UGB, status quo Oregon planning and the insane overcrowding of every city in Oregon. You know, the wonderful planning M37 is supposed to be threatening.

And it's not about preseving rural Oregon or the view while driving to the beach. The abundant land between corridors and countless locations around and adajacent to Florence could easilty accomodate decades of new develpoment without sacrificing rural Oregon. Just as growth did no ruin the state for all of those decades before our contemporary planning fanatics and kooks.

But the League of Oregon Cities distributes the model and the schemes to pack more and more into our cities without regard for the detriments of this haphazard development planning.

Unfortunately Oregonians deserve to have their State ruined by San Franscisco and East Coast enviro/planner liberals.
Oregon voters have been electing these clowns for decades.
Look at the city councils, county commissioners, Metro and our State officials. For the most part they are all impressionable, naive, confused and friggin stupid beyond belief.
I'm sorry but I have watched plenty of them in action and it's astounding to see them fall all over themselves with one ridiculous decison after another. And it doesn't matter what they see happen they'll do it all over again.
It's a group stupid thing really. While the green and sustainable music puts them all in a trance.

The primary reason that condo building is blocking the view of the dunes is the UGB, status quo Oregon planning and the insane overcrowding of every city in Oregon.

Now we're just getting stupid.

Sorry that was a bit over the top but who decides? A government agency? Without the right to own our land we are nothing more than serf's or slaves. Property rights are very improtant to most of us.

Zzzz. The Florence bureaucrats should have been 100% sure that the jerk who owns this property wouldn't block the view from the bridge before they issued the permit.

And the jerk should have done the same.

But nowadays, nobody thinks, or cares, around here. Everybody's just busy proving what an a*shole they can be. Congratulations, property rights advocates. What a great moment this is.

Suppose the "view" would be obstructed by un-clear-painted trees that would surely grow to a height of 50 feet?

"Congratulations, property rights advocates" ???

How about Congratulations, planning advocates? It's the land use planning system which M37 opponents are forever touting that brought about this debackle.

Let's not get too twisted up here. This is no different that the same system approving tightly packed 325 ft high rises in SoWa, or a 7 story parking garage in Beaverton, or the ugly infill in neighborhoods where it doesn't fit, or
the sea of tightly packed roofs, sidewalks and asphalt that Metro has been mandating for 20 years.

There is no doubt that if Oregon had less of a restrictive planning system, but still reasonable protections, this project would not have been pushed to stack as much as possible.
With M37 more wholly implemented projects like this could have been developed in the periphery of Florence, in a less dense and obstructing way, better preserving the character and views of Florence.

So what is stupid here? The blind enamor with our planning system that spawns a building like this blocking views of the dunes. Further "stupid" is the false choice that Oregon must sustain this level of stupid and extreme land use planning or have none at all.

when the discussion is mainly about building height and size--it's already too late.

With M37 more wholly implemented projects like this could have been developed in the periphery of Florence, in a less dense and obstructing way, better preserving the character and views of Florence.

Huh? The condo developers don't want to build "in [sic] the periphery of Florence," they want to build right in the middle of Florence, where they can score the primo views. Saying that this controversy is the result of land use planning is like saying that the debacle in Iraq is the result of too many peace marches.