By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats City Council will resume discussing possible changes to its 2-year-old vacation rental ordinance during a workshop meeting Wednesday, Aug. 7.
The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. in council chambers at the Yachats Commons.
The council has been trying to make headway on potential tweaks to the ordinance for months, but now faces an Oct. 1 deadline when the current ordinance expires. Most of its discussions have been to narrow more than a dozen issues – not address specific language.
Vacation rentals are one of the city’s most contentious issues. People holding licenses use them for income, as an investment and to help pay property expenses; others complain the constant coming-and-going of visitors degrades their neighborhood and helps contribute to the lack of permanent housing in the area.
But tourist taxes power much of the city’s budget — almost 32 percent of the $1.06 million the city collected in lodging taxes in 2018-19 came from vacation rentals.
Mayor John Moore has developed a summary of the council’s previous discussions, with four issues seemingly to have consensus but listing at least 11 issues still to discuss and decide.
On Wednesday, Moore is suggesting deeper discussions on license transfers to heirs and/or new owners, what to do with licenses not being used, continuing to allow exemptions to the four-bedroom maximum, requiring conditional use permits for new licenses in neighborhoods zoned for single-family use, and the frequency of and fees for inspections.
But it appears that at least two council members – Jim Tooke and Max Glenn – are opposed to allowing any license transfers.
Tooke has said at previous meetings that if the city keeps its current 125-license cap then he adamantly opposes “grandfathering” licenses to the 137 people who currently hold them, thus allowing the ability to transfer them.
Under the current ordinance, a license cannot be transferred to a new owner or family member once the property is sold. New licenses could be granted after their number drops below the 125-license cap – unless that cap is also changed.
Glenn told YachatsNews.com this week that he’s now opposed to transfers of any kind. But Glenn said he’s asked City Manager Shannon Beaucaire to see if there is a way to establish a special “mini-motel” category for two large vacation rentals that are currently exempt from the city’s four-bedroom rental limit.
Glenn is referring to a seven-bedroom vacation rental on Southeast King Street owned by Candy and Paul Neville of Eugene that sits on 1.3 acres and a three-story, six-bedroom rental with an elevator on Lemwick Lane owned by Ron and Carol Spisso of Alsea. Both have repeatedly argued to the city that their large houses are of little value in a retirement and tourist community other than as a vacation rental and that they want to be able to transfer their licenses to family members.
“My primary interest is in keeping the two rentals that are much larger than most and retaining them as a community asset,” he said.
Glenn said he also would like to hear from the 10-12 people who hold vacation rental licenses but are not using them.
“… I’d like to know what their plans are and what they say about keeping a dormant license,” he said.
The council has never discussed allowing unlimited number of vacation rentals in commercial zones, as some people have suggested, or requiring that people renewing or seeking licenses show that deed restrictions allow them on that property.
Although the council could extend the current ordinance as it is, Moore said in an email to YachatsNews.com that if the council makes good headway Wednesday it could finish its work in September.
“If we can get a consensus on each of the six items on this month’s agenda, then I’m optimistic that we can finish up things by September, but we’ll have to see if it pans out that way,” Moore said.
Also on the agenda is another discussion – and another possible vote – on one-way directions on Ocean View Drive once it is repaved, striped and turned over by Lincoln County to the city. The council voted in May to make Ocean View Drive one-way northbound between West Second and Seventh streets and one-way eastbound from Yachats State Park to Pontiac Street. But push-back from some residents of West Second Street is making some council members uneasy and wanting to re-think their vote.