City of TD Issues License for Ixtapa to Expand Outdoor Seating Area in City Right of Way
The Dalles Ixtapa.
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
By Cole Goodwin
With some help from the City of The Dalles, Ixtapa, a family owned restaurant located at 810 Cherry Heights in The Dalles, will be expanding its outdoor seating capacity in light of recent pandemic restrictions on indoor dining.
The City of The Dalles has awarded a fifteen-year encroachment agreement to Manuel Barajas, President of the locally owned Ixtapa Restaurant to expand the restaurant's outdoor seating into the adjoining city right-of-way known as “Volunteer Park”. The agreement was made in light of recent hardships faced by the business due to covid-19 pandemic restrictions which have limited the restaurant's indoor dining capacity.
There had been some community speculation on social media as to whether the Volunteer Park was an actual tax lot that had been sold to Ixtapa.
A facebook post from The Dalles Happenings concerning the Volunteer Park.
However, City of The Dalles Attorney Jonathan Kara, clarified that the park was considered city right-of-way and not a taxable lot. This meant that no sale had occurred and that essentially, Ixtapa had been given a temporary revocable license to use the city right-of-way to expand their outdoor dining as long as certain conditions were met.
The conditions of the agreement included Ixtapa paying for half of the City’s cost to build a fence around the outdoor dining area. The agreement was also made with the understanding that the agreement could be rescinded at any time in the event the city needs to use the right-of-way for traffic reasons.
“The City granted Ixtapa a temporary and revocable license to use the area to expand its outdoor seating capabilities and capacity for 15 years with the understanding the City may revoke the license at its discretion if and when it determines transportation purposes necessitate reoccupying the area,” said Kara.
Map from the encroachment agreement.
So what is the difference between a city right-of-way and a taxable lot?
“It’s just a special class of property,” said Kara, The Dalles City Attorney. “All city right-of-ways within City Limits are governed by Title Two of The Municipal Code. And Title Two says that the City has full jurisdiction and exercises complete regulatory control over those lands.”
“The City grants permission to occupy its public rights-of-way by franchises (for utilities), permits (for temporary encroachments), and licenses (for non-permanent encroachments). Here, the City entered an Encroachment Agreement with Ixtapa, the adjacent property owner,” said Kara.
Ixtapa’s current small outdoor dining area sits directly adjacent to the city right-of-way known as Volunteer Park.
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
While some citizens of The Dalles have responded to the City’s decision to grant the encroachment to Ixtapa very positively, stating they felt it would be an “improvement for the area”. Others voiced concerns on social media saying they wondered how the volunteers who built the park would feel about it.
While CCC News was unable to connect with any of those volunteers or donors before publishing we were able to track down some of the local history of the park.
The Volunteer Park was a beautification project undertaken by the City and Red Cross in the ’80s. The City had re-designed the intersection of Cherry Heights and Chenowith Street resulting in the triangle of land adjoining what is now Ixtapa. Red Cross volunteers helped to clean the area, removed dead pine trees, and prepped the area for concrete, bricks, and benches.
Karen Kublick was a volunteer with the local Red Cross office and she worked with other Red Cross volunteers to maintain the park by keeping the area clean and the hedges trimmed etc. However after the Wasco County Red Cross office was closed, Kublick was soon the only Red Cross volunteer left to maintain the park. So in 2010 Kublick took on the park clean-up as a personal project. She planted bulbs, cleaned up weeds and garbage as necessary. However, in the past 4-5 years she became physically unable to keep up with the park’s maintenance. This led to the City assigning City maintenance workers to clean and maintain the Volunteer Park.
In September of 2021, The City then entered into an agreement to temporarily hand off maintenance and city right-of-way improvement responsibilities to Ixtapa and allow the restaurant to temporarily use the space for increased outdoor dining. By October of 2021 work had begun to place fence posts around the park. Changes to the park will include new concrete being poured to create a level area for dining, the removal of rotting railroad ties, and the building of a new fence.
It is currently unknown whether the Red Cross plaque and bricks with volunteer and donor names would be removed or potentially be incorporated into the redesign of the city-right-of-way.
CORRECTION: CCCNews previously misreported that the removal of the bricks and plaque would occur and apologizes for the confusion.
