By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
A coalition of Lincoln County neighborhood groups says it will make a “last minute” decision next week whether to submit initiative petitions to the county to seek a vote limiting vacation rentals on the May ballot.
The 15neighborhoods group has until 5 p.m. Wednesday to submit more than 1,454 petitions with signatures to the county clerk’s office to get on the May 18 ballot. It hopes to collect 20-25 percent more than that as a buffer for signatures that might be determined invalid.
The group’s initiative would ask voters throughout the county to phase out vacation rentals in single-family zoned areas of unincorporated Lincoln County over five years.
The group started its effort last summer after county commissioners could not complete their revamping of short-term rental regulations because of the coronavirus pandemic and then wildfires. It missed an August deadline to get on the November ballot, but has a two-year window to gather enough signatures to force a countywide vote.
The group received a jolt of interest the last three weeks after mailing 6,000 campaign fliers to residents in south Lincoln County, including 1,200 in the Yachats area and 3,300 in the Waldport area.
“The south county area wasn’t seeing this (issue) as much,” said Monica Kirk, who lives in the Miroco neighborhood just south of Depoe Bay and is the initiative’s chief petitioner. “Now, interest is picking up.”
Kirk told YachatsNews on Tuesday they would not divulge how many signed petitions they had received. Because of coronavirus restrictions, it can’t gather signatures in public but must go through a more cumbersome process in which people have to download a paper copy from the 15neighborhood’s website, sign it and mail it to them, or have a group volunteer pick it up.
If the group decides against going on the May ballot, the same petitions can be used to try to qualify for the November election.
County commissioners have extended a more than year-old moratorium on new short-term rental licenses until June 1, saying they would finish work on tighter regulations by then. The county held the first of two planned workshops in January, but has not yet scheduled a second.
A vacation rental industry group called Via Oregon has formed to oppose the initiative, should it get on the ballot and to mobilize rental owners and managers to state their case to county commissioners.
