GLENEDEN BEACH, Ore. -- The Lincoln County Planning Commission is expected to decide in late July whether proposed changes to the iconic Salishan Resort can move forward.
Two hundred people attended a special meeting Monday night in Gleneden Beach to discuss the proposals with the commission.
Salishan is made up of the resort and a community of roughly 500 homes outside the resort.
Doug Wride is one of those homeowners. He's seen things change.
“We came here because of what it was. And it no longer is. For the 13 years we've been here this resort has just declined,” he said.
Now the new resort owners, Alpha Wave Investors, want to add eco adventures like glamping, tree top canopy tours, rope challenge courses, zip lines and more.
That zip line idea brought fast pushback from some homeowners.
Company CEO Ken Cruse said he listened.
“Immediately called out by that community which said, ‘Guys, are you kidding me?’ You’re putting zip lines in an area that’s highly visible to our homes.' I screwed up in that whole process. I didn’t walk out there and help them see where the lines were going to go. And in the end, they were absolutely right,” Cruse said.
He moved the zip lines away from the homes.
Still, some like homeowner Linda Reid, who is not near the zip lines, worries about the impact.
“I think they're definitely going to be visible. They're going to be noisy as people screaming down zip lines,” she said.
Linda's husband, Clyde, worries about existing things being ignored.
“We have a wonderful golf course, and a wonderful tennis center. And we're afraid that the pre- occupation with new things is being pursued at the expense of the old things that put Salishan on the map in the first place,” he said.
But Cruse said the plan is to raise the quality of the entire resort, which he said will benefit everyone.
“We're not just about buying and flipping real estate. We take real estate that is wonderful, beautiful assets like this and we try to make them much better,” he said.