Company is now offering to grant an easement for a riverside trail link

Evanite Fiber Corp. continues to tweak the terms of its offer of property for a riverside trail link.

In the second modification since the proposal was unveiled in June, Evanite is streamlining its land-use request in a way that shields the city from potential liability. The new application will be submitted to Corvallis planning officials Monday.

Rather than donating land to the city as previously proposed, the company is now offering to grant an easement through its 35-acre industrial site south of downtown for a new multi-use path along the bank of the Willamette River.

The change, suggested by city planning staff, would give the public permanent access to a narrow swath of land along the river, making it possible to link downtown and south Corvallis in an uninterrupted 3.5-mile pedestrian and bicycle path.

"That's what the city wants, and that could be accomplished with an easement," said Bob Richardson, a city planner working on the proposal.

That change eliminated the need for lot-line adjustments, which created "an additional layer of complexity" in the original application, Richardson said.

It also eliminated the possibility that the city could be held liable for cleanup costs if toxic chemicals were found on the property. The industrial solvent trichloroethylene was spilled on the Evanite site decades ago, and the company is engaged in a long-term cleanup program supervised by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

And, because the property would remain under private ownership, it would also remain on the property tax rolls. Evanite employs about 150 people at its Crystal Lake Drive plant, which makes glass fiber for use in specialized battery and filtration applications.

The easement would vary between 57 and 122 feet in width from the Willamette River's ordinary low water line and would run for a quarter-mile. That would leave a consistent 32-foot-wide strip above the bank, enough for a 12-foot-wide asphalt path with a 10-foot buffer on either side.

That's just one part of a complicated application by Evanite, which is seeking several changes in local and state land-use designations that would make it easier for the company to modernize its manufacturing operations and build a new access road through its property.

In exchange for the right to build a trail link on the riverfront land, Evanite wants the city's support in asking the state to redraw the Willamette River Greenway boundary. Currently, most of the company's operations are inside the greenway.

The greenway is a state land-use designation imposed in the 1970s long after industrial operations began on the Evanite property with the aim of protecting the river. Evanite officials say the additional layer of regulatory oversight has repeatedly kept the company from upgrading its facilities, and they've made a shift in the greenway boundary a condition of granting the easement.

"The purpose of moving the greenway is to give us a little more leeway in modernizing our plant," said Dan Kellom, Evanite's engineering manager.

If the change goes through, Evanite would also demolish an 80,000-square-foot hardboard plant that currently comes to the river's edge, blocking a possible trail link. The company closed the plant several years ago.

But the Willamette River Greenway is under state jurisdiction. Both the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and the Land Conservation and Development Commission would have to sign off on a boundary change,

Such a request is largely uncharted territory.

"This is, I believe, the first time in a long time anybody has requested to change the Willamette River Greenway boundary," said Fred Towne, the city's planning manager.

However, the boundary varies a good deal in width. On the Evanite site, it extends as much as 900 feet from the river, while it's much narrower through downtown.

Evanite is also asking for a reduction in city setback requirements to allow construction of nonindustrial buildings up to the edge of the easement to take full advantage of a zoning change that went into effect last year.

The site is now zoned mixed-use transitional, a designation intended to eventually move the property from industrial to commercial or residential use. While Evanite has no plans to halt glass fiber manufacturing on the site, it's contemplating other uses for parts of the property.

"That's the other thing that's driving this," Kellom said.

"We probably wouldn't develop it ourselves. We might partner with somebody else who would develop it."

Evanite's proposal could go to the Corvallis Planning Commission as early as March 19 for a hearing. The Planning Commission would make a recommendation to the City Council, which would also hold a public hearing on the matter.

If the council opts to redraw the Willamette River Greenway boundary around the Evanite property on its comprehensive plan map, it would ask the state for a rule change to implement the shift.

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.