Contenders for Ward 4 on the Astoria City Council — Vance Lump, Lisa Morley and Mimi Rose — were divided on housing and development issues at a candidates’ forum at Astoria High School on Monday night.

Housing was the clearest point of contention at the forum, which was sponsored by the Astoria chapter of the American Association of University Women in partnership with The Astorian and Coast Community Radio and moderated by Astoria High School principal Lynn Jackson.

Lump, the owner of Astoria Wood Windows and the vice president of the Astoria Housing Alliance, an advocacy group, has centered his campaign around housing development and affordability.

“I think the first step for City Council is to kind of change the perception of the leadership at the city,” Lump said. “As of right now, if you ask people who build these projects, they say Astoria is a very hard place to build. And we do have very specific concerns as far as landslide, geotech concerns we have to deal with. We do have limited land, and so I agree with all that, but we also have a reputation as a place that doesn’t approve things very easily, and some of that could be fixed by cleaning up our code.”

Morley, a retired behavioral health consultant who ran for the east-side seat in 2020 and lost to City Councilor Tom Hilton by one vote, emphasized the need for affordable options but argued that Astoria should not build any more housing given overburdened infrastructure and traffic concerns. Morley also pointed to installing a traffic light on U.S. Highway 30 near Emerald Heights and advocating for a truck bypass as ways to improve safety and ease congestion.

“I am not a proponent of building more housing in Astoria,” she said. “There’s been 10,000 (residents). I think that’s the right number for our location … Putting more houses in when we can’t take care of Astorians that live here right now and are paying higher property taxes every year and think we’re going to put more houses in and just contribute to the problem — I am not a proponent of that.”

Rose, a commercial building owner downtown with a background in banking, has advocated against housing projects downtown given limited parking. She was a vocal opponent of a workforce housing project at Heritage Square and has been active with Friends of Heritage Square, a group of residents that wants to create a public gathering place at the downtown block.

“The downtown area is difficult because there isn’t adequate parking,” she said. “We don’t have a bus system for people to get around. To put housing without parking doesn’t really serve anybody at this point. I think that what we need to do is we need to look at alternatives, and that is the Emerald Heights (and) Tongue Point areas.”

Clatsop County does have a bus system — the Sunset Empire Transportation District — though bus routes are limited following the agency’s financial collapse in 2023, which abruptly shut down bus service on the North Coast. The transit district has been slowly restoring routes.

Rose also emphasized her concerns with LiFEBoat Services, which operates a homeless shelter on Commercial Street downtown.

“As for LiFEBoat Services, I would like to see them relocate from downtown Astoria,” she said. “I think that it has created a safety issue in the minds of a lot of people, individual citizens of Astoria, that fear going downtown. And that’s a worry.”

Lump and Morley, on the other hand, advocated for providing additional support services for people experiencing homelessness or domestic violence.

“I think housing issues are most important for those that are most vulnerable,” Lump said. “Having more options there is going to make it easier to get out of those situations.”

Hilton chose not to run for reelection to a second, four-year term in Ward 4, creating an open seat in November. The ward covers neighborhoods in Uppertown, Alderbrook and Emerald Heights.

Andrea Mazzarella, a real estate agent, is unopposed in Ward 2, which covers the South Slope and parts of Uniontown. City Councilor Tom Brownson opted not to run for a third term representing the ward.