By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
WALDPORT – It’s going to cost more to own or manage a vacation rental, have garbage service, and pay for water and sewer service in Waldport soon.
As the start of the 2023-24 fiscal year approaches July 1, the city council Thursday took steps to raise fees for many businesses – including new fees on vacation rental management companies — and approved a rate increase for Dahl Disposal customers.
As part of its 2023-24 budget process, the council next week will also get a proposal to raise water and sewer rates by 8.9 percent to keep up with operating costs and maintain reserves for infrastructure projects.
The increase vacation rental fees were part of an overall restructuring of business license fees, which have not been updated in 20 years.
There are 43 licensed vacation rentals in Waldport. That compares with 500 in unincorporated Lincoln County and up to 125 in Yachats.
Waldport’s current yearly vacation rental license fee is $200. City manager Dann Cutter proposed the council raise that to $500. In addition, he suggested the council charge rental management companies $2,000 a year to register with the city – or $1,000 a year for rental companies with a staffed office in Waldport.
The fee on management companies is designed to make up for staff time in dealing with national rental management companies who give only the basic information on their properties to the city, Cutter said.
“We have incredibly higher costs dealing with these companies,” he told the council. “Oftentimes we call and just hope we get somebody to help.”
Cutter said the council had a philosophical choice — put a cap on vacation rental licenses like many other cities or raise fees significantly to see if that deters owners from converting single-family homes or apartments into short-term rentals.
The proposal would have $400 of the $500 yearly license fee and $1,900 of the $2,000 yearly management fee go to a new fund in the 2023-24 budget to help with future housing issues. The new vacation rental fees would likely generate $20,000 the first year, he said in a memo to the council.
Cutter later told YachatsNews it would take years for the fund to build up and could be used as matching funds for housing grants or other housing efforts.
The increase or new vacation rental fees were part of an overall package of business license changes the council approved 6-0. Mayor Greg Holland was absent. It will vote again on a formal resolution next month.
Instead of a business license formula based on the number of employees that could go as high as $200 a year, the new fee is a flat $100. Contractors with a commercial builders license would pay $50.
“We want more contractors in town,” Cutter said about the difference.
Home-based businesses, food carts and seasonal merchants would also pay $50 a year.
Dahl rate increase
The council does not have much control over Dahl Disposal’s requested 8.4 percent rate increase.
Under a countywide formula adopted by cities, the three garbage haulers in Lincoln County can seek yearly rate increases if its operating costs are outside an allowable range of 85 percent to 91 percent. Rates are regulated to allow a pre-tax rate of return of 12 percent, said Dahl general manager Joe Cook.
Cook said the July rate increase would bring its operating ratio to 90 percent – still below the target of 88 percent, which would have required a bigger jump.
“This is a one-time exception and not a practice we can expect to recur going forward,” he said in a memo to the city.
Figures provided to the city show that in Waldport, Dahl lost $515 on revenue of $742,419 in 2022. With the rate increase it projected to have net income of $80,855 in 2023-24 in Waldport.
Dahl’s residential rates for 35-gallon garbage and recycling containers will increase by $3 to $38.95 a month. The charge for 65-gallon containers will increase by $5.05 to $65.15 per month.
Charges for weekly commercial service will increase by $13.55 to $175 a month.
In other business the council:
- Extended a social media policy that had applied only to employees to all council members. Thepolicy now says elected or appointed officials are to refer questions on social media to the city manager or city recorder, who will respond only through the city’s website, news releases or its social media account. The policy was extended to council members because some had expressed displeasure over Holland’s social media posts involving the city;
- Agreed to give the Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue District until Dec. 1 to make its first interest-only payment of $40,290 on a five-year $1.02 million note to buy the fire station in downtown Waldport. The fire district took ownership of the station May 4, but asked to delay the first year’s interest payment due June 1 so it could adjust its upcoming 2023-24 budget. The district recently learned it did not get a state seismic grant of up to $2.5 million to help pay for remodeling the building.
Dear Residents of Waldport:
I Googled VRBA for the location Waldport Or. No date. The search yielded 132 short-term rentals ranging from $125 to $3,014 (12 cottages, sleep 48).
Because Waldport has licensed 43 STRs, most of the 133 are in the nearby vicinity of Waldport, probably most in unincorporated Lincoln County (likely Bayshore).
Because addresses aren’t available until a reservation is completed, I consider the daily average rate of the first 43 STRs. The rate was between $125 and $335. Seventy-four averaged $400 or more.
If I owned an STR that could gross $133,275 annually ($335 x 365 days), I’d be fine paying $500 for a license.
If the goal is to discourage vacation rentals government must schedule a phase-out of them. The courts did not strike down the 15neighbothoods ballot measure because of the phase-out.
Give credit to Lincoln County for reducing the number of STR licenses to 181, but realistically will be years, if not decades in some regions like Bayshore before the Lincoln County cap is reached. We think the county’s cap is the best “first step” we’ve seen on the coast and are watching to see whether the new STR ordinance restores our workforce housing and the quality and character of rural neighbor life by reducing the number of STRs and relieving, through effective inspection, neighborhood patrols, and “three strike” enforcement, this neighborhood nuisance.
By all means, set low caps (1%, max), raise fees to recover the actual cost of licensing, inspecting, patrolling neighborhoods, and enforcement (est $3k-$4k), and raise fines for noncompliance. But these expenses will not discourage short-term rentals. Only a phase-out of the licensing program with enough time to allow owners to make other plans will accomplish this.
15neighborhoods has a model initiative petition, drafted by our attorney, that corrects the technical errors in Ballot Measure 21-203. We have it in case we may need it, but will make it available to the Residents of Waldport or of other “touristy” jurisdictions for free.
We are in this together.
The social media policy was to have everyone on the Waldport City Council stop answering, commenting and posting about city matters on the Waldport Community Page on Facebook. It was not directed at only Mayor Holland as the story implied.