The Yachats City Council plans Wednesday afternoon to finish a contentious six month process of deciding how to regulate vacation rentals in Yachats.
Two weeks ago the council voted unanimously to keep a 125-limit cap on the number of licensed short-term rentals in the city.
During its meeting Wednesday, it plans to wade through previous “consensus” decisions and advice from its attorney on at least 10 other vacation rental regulations. The meeting begins at 2 p.m., switch from previous night time meetings. The discussion and public hearing to follow, however, are currently last on a long council agenda.
To be discussed and possibly decided are:
- A more than doubling of licensing fees proposed in August by Mayor John Moore intended to help pay for increased inspection and code enforcement. Those fees would increase with the next renewals in late December, giving the city two months to develop a plan and personnel to handle the increased scrutiny.
- Continuing the city’s vacation rental ordinance in its basic form, including keeping its longtime ban of not allowing license transfers to new owners or heirs. With the addition of a license cap two years ago, this is the biggest issue with vacation rental owners because there is currently no rom under the cap to get a new license.
- New license applications will have a size limit of four bedrooms. There are currently five licensed rentals with city permission to have more than that — and they will be able to keep them when they renew.
- Allowing people to hold licenses even though there is no rental activity. There are currently 141 licenses, according to the city, but 22 have shown no rental activity.
- Establishing a waiting list for people purchasing a vacation rental who want to get a new license. The city has not yet figured out a process for handling such a list but the council may discuss ideas for how to set one up.
- Whether to require new vacation rental license applications to get a conditional use permit by going through hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council. This would give neighbors or others nearby a chance to weigh in on the issue. That process, however, makes getting a license a land-use decision with a whole other set of rules and procedures and not simply a matter of obtaining a business license. The city’s attorney has suggested sending the requirement to the Planning Commission to discuss and draft proposed code changes.
- Whether to have current license holders submit a list of complaints made through their property managers and to provide a list of rental nights for the previous year.
After a two-year trial, the council voted 5-0 on Oct. 2 to keep the 125 license cap, saying it was trying to balance livability issues with property rights and tourism. While the cap and other proposed regulations have drawn support from some local residents, many vacation rental owners, Realtors and management companies have opposed them at every hearing. A vacation rental group called Yachats Alliance spearheaded by Candy Neville of Eugene, who owns a large rental on King Street, has also formed to fight for changes.
What a meeting! Yachats Alliance is growing in numbers including non-rental owners/residents to promote property rights for all. A huge eye-opener for me was that the hardship was not just on the rental owners, but some of the new folks who had trustingly invested in a house or TWO or remodeled extensively only to be blindsided and stopped in their tracks. Some of the strongest residents against the Cap are those who have been here the longest and do not like the new face of Yachats and the limits put on their heirs. I’ve had a rental for 21 years and was warmly welcomed by Yachats when we came here. Others have come here since and have also been warmly welcomed by me. We are now the old establishment. Some newbies warmly welcome only the elite few and have the audacity to monitor, harass, harm the finances of those of us who have been here a long, long time, those who moved here and invested and are blocked.