Andy Kipp for Astoria Ward 1

I’m an engineer and housing advocate, and I’ve lived in Astoria with my wife since 2019. After watching friends and neighbors struggle to find housing they could afford, and seeing longtime residents leave because they could no longer make it work here, I started getting involved in local housing issues.

In 2024, I founded the Astoria Housing Alliance, a community organization focused on housing education, outreach, and advocacy. When the Owens Adair II affordable housing project faced opposition, the Alliance helped organize community support and testimony for the project. It’s now build, and providing 50 apartment homes for low-income seniors.

I’ve also worked to make sure the housing protections Astoria already has on the books are actually enforced. In 2023, I challenged the conversion of four long-term apartments into Short-Term Rentals, which city code prohibits, but was allowed to proceed anyway. The dispute eventually went to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, which ruled in my favor.

I serve on the board of Copeland Commons, a local nonprofit working to turn a long-abandoned historic building on Marine Drive into 60 affordable apartments. We’ve been working with partners at the local, state, and federal level to put together the funding needed to make the project happen.

I’m also the chief petitioner and organizer for the Astoria Housing Initiative, a local ballot measure that would tax homes kept empty for most of the year and use the revenue to make housing more affordable to Astoria’s full time residents and workers. I knocked on about 800 doors and personally gathered more than 500 of the 1,109 signatures that put the measure on the November ballot.

Professionally, I’m Director of Engineering at Posit Software, a public benefit corporation and certified B-Corp that builds tools for data analysis. I’ve spent about 20 years working in the software industry and the past four in leadership, managing teams, complex projects, and multimillion-dollar budgets. The work is different than what I do housing, but the approach is pretty similar: understand the problem, figure out what can actually be done about it, and stick with it until it’s solved. That is the same approach I’ll bring to City Council.

When I’m not working or organizing, I’m usually outside hiking, backpacking, or sailing on the Columbia with the Astoria Yacht Club.

Want to know more? Don’t hesitate to contact Contact Me.