By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals ruled late Monday that a citizen-approved ballot measure that phased out vacation rentals in unincorporated Lincoln County violates Oregon law and is invalid.
County commissioners and the group that put Measure 21-203 on the November 2021 ballot must also decide within 21 days whether to appeal LUBA’s ruling or to focus on defending two other issues in Lincoln County circuit court, where there are a series of other challenges is under consideration.
In its ruling, LUBA said the ballot measure conflicted with Oregon land-use law. The measure said short-term rentals in residential zones were non-conforming uses and would end after a five-year phase out. LUBA, a state quasi-judicial body that decides legal issues involving land use, said Oregon law (ORS.215.130) says that non-conforming uses must be allowed to continue — that such uses cannot be changed retroactively at the local level if there is a conflict with state law.
“BM 21-203 requires uses previously allowed in certain zones to end within five years,” LUBA said in its decision. “This violates ORS 215.130(5).”
In a second major element of its ruling, LUBA said the ballot measure and a separate county ordinance that prevents transfer of a vacation rental license when a property is sold or changes owners also conflicts with the same law.
“We agree with petitioners that BM 21-203 violates ORS 215.130(5) by requiring STRs in the identified zones to cease within five years and by prohibiting their transfer of ownership,” the agency said. “ORS 215.130(5) prohibits the county from requiring lawful STRs that are nonconforming uses to cease in five years or prohibiting the transfer of their ownership.”
LUBA declined to rule on several other challenges to the measure or a county ordinance enacted shortly before the 2021 vote, saying its decision on non-conforming uses made those arguments moot.
The vacation rental lodging group that formed to fight the initiative at the ballot box and then in the courtroom, issued a statement late Monday saying it hopes LUBA’s decision “will lead to common-sense regulation.”
“We hope the decision will clear the way for the county to accept our help instead of continuing to waste taxpayer money on the bad idea of banning vacation rentals,” ViaOregon said in its statement.
The ruling was being closely watched around Oregon as other groups and jurisdictions wrestle with how – or if – to regulate the growing number of vacation rentals in popular tourist areas.
The measure made the Lincoln County ballot after a coalition of neighborhood groups grew frustrated with the county’s stop-and-go efforts to regulate vacation rentals in unincorporated neighborhoods. They collected enough signatures to get their proposal on last November’s ballot, where it passed easily — 58 to 42 percent — after an expensive and bitter campaign.
The measure phased out short-term rentals in residentially-zoned areas of unincorporated areas of the county. It would also have limited occupancy and required septic inspections and improvements.
The measure did not apply to vacation rentals inside cities, most of which have their own regulations and limits.
The measure was immediately challenged in Lincoln County circuit court, but a judge ruled in March that the measure was a land-use issue and sent the dispute to LUBA.
The circuit court still has two legal issues before it – a ViaOregon challenge to a county moratorium on issuing new licenses and a procedural issue on whether county commissioners improperly passed its own ordinance by not providing individual notices to all short-term license holders.
Commissioners passed Ordinance 523 six days before last November’s vote in an attempt to sway voters to reject the ballot measure, which they argued was too severe and susceptible to legal challenges.
County officials learned of the LUBA ruling Monday evening and planned to discuss this week – there is no regular commissioner meeting Wednesday – what they might do next.
Monica Kirk, co-chair of the 15neighborhoods group, said its steering committee was talking with their attorney Tuesday and would meet Wednesday to discuss its response.
But there is no immediate impact on the 511 licenses currently held in unincorporated areas of the county.
The county could decide to appeal the LUBA ruling, wait on circuit court rulings on its ordinance, or begin implementing its ordinance that puts limits on the number of licenses in certain “zones” on the west and east sides of U.S. Highway 101.
A moratorium on issuing new licenses that has been extended multiple times in the past two years, is due to expire in September.
To read LUBA’s 24-page ruling, go here
- Quinton Smith, a longtime Oregon journalist, is the founder and editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
The county should then look at taxing STRs at a much higher rate, perhaps double than owner occupied, and homes being used to provide housing long -term housing in the county. That would help encourage long term rentals for actual housing and help alleviate the current housing shortage. There also needs to be stricter regulation in residential areas where they have been known to create problems for residents.