The Yachats City Council will resume its discussion – nearly it’s last – on how or if to revise portions of its vacation rental ordinance when it meets Wednesday, Sept. 4.
The workshop session – for council discussion and not public comment – is at 9:30 a.m. in the council chambers of the Yachats Commons. A public comment period follows when the council moves into regular session.
The council in August reached consensus – but did not formally vote — on six areas of vacation rental regulation. On Wednesday it plans to discuss six additional issues outlined in a July memo by Mayor John Moore.
If the council finishes reaching consensus on the final issues it hopes to vote on formal wording at its Sept. 18 meeting.
The items expected to be discussed Wednesday include if and how to develop a waiting list for new licenses, retaining the current 125-license cap on rentals, exempting “home shares” from licensed rentals, restricting large events at rentals, a new license fee structure, and allowing property purchasers to apply for a vacation rental license before a sale is complete.
In August the council reached a consensus to:
- Continue to prohibit transfer of a license to either heirs or buyers of a vacation rental property.
- Not allow a buyer of a vacation rental property to apply for and immediately get a city license. –
- Allow the 10-12 people holding but not using their vacation rental licenses to continue not using them.
- Continue to exempt five vacation rental properties from a four-bedroom rental limit established in previous ordinances.
- Require applications for new vacation rental licenses for homes in residential zones to go through a conditional-use approval process with the Planning Commission.
- Raise fees to $150 for the first vacation rental inspection and to $100 for any subsequent re-inspection and require those every two years.
For the council’s information Wednesday, city staff surveyed the total number of 141 current vacation rental licenses and how they were being used. It found that 111 were being used regularly, eight were being used very little, and 22 not being used at all.
The council has been debating for four months what to change – if anything – in its two-year-old pilot program that regulates vacation rentals in the city. The current ordinance expires Oct. 1, but could be extended until the council finishes its work.
The city has been regulating vacation rentals for years, but only two years ago instituted a temporary cap of 125 licenses and became one of the only Oregon cities with such a limit. Because city ordinances do not allow licenses to be transferred, the cap effectively stopped owners from transferring their license to buyers of their property or to family members.
Vacation rental of private homes is currently one of the hottest issues in most every Oregon and West Coast tourist town. Cities rely on lodging taxes to prop up budgets and owners use them as investment property, for income or to help pay the mortgage. But some neighborhoods have been taken over by rentals, which can degrade livability with the constant coming-and-going of visitors.
