The city’s vacation rental dwelling compliance officer Jeff Flory took the stage last Tuesday as the Planning Commission met to discuss improvements to the complaint process.

The current system relies on calls to an owner’s representative, the city’s community development department or police.

An alternative can be found online by lodging a complaint at the city’s website.

“When there is an alleged or perceived vacation rental dwelling permit violation,” the website states, “the citizen or neighboring property owner is advised to contact the local responsible party/property manager for the VRD. The reporting party will need to provide the VRD address and the nature of the complaint.”

But, commissioners noted, no mechanism is in place if a vacation rental property owner does not have a local representative or the representative does not respond in a timely manner.

“We have a good list of nonresponsive contacts,” Flory said. “That’s one of the first things I’m looking into: How can we get local contacts to be responsive? We need to make it easier for people to call the issue and relay that back to me when they file a complaint.”

Up to 90% of residents “don’t know their local contact and don’t know what to do” to file a complaint, he added.

Commissioner Bill Carpenter said the city website could also be improved. “You have to go through a whole bunch of rabbit holes,” he said. “If you’re an upset citizen, you’d never find it.”

Commissioners faced the question of how to make communication easier while maintaining privacy.

Management companies, used by about 75% of vacation rental property owners, might be available 24 hours a day, but owner-operators might not be. Other coastal cities, including Gearhart and Newport, put out information including street addresses, emergency contacts and the owner’s phone number, Flory said.

The contact must respond within two hours to be in compliance, including problems with trash, noise, parking or plumbing.

If the emergency contact or homeowner doesn’t respond to the call, then a complaint could be lodged with the city. “If we have multiple complaints at one property, there’s something in their process we need to start looking at to stop that behavior,” Flory said.

In a survey, Flory said, 36 vacation rental dwelling property owners were split whether to have their information posted on a website accessible to the public.

Flory proposed working with city staff and the planning director to add a button on the city’s home page with a link to an online complaint form.

“Part of the complaint form is I want to know what the response is from the local contact,” Flory said. “If there’s no response or an unreasonable response, for the local contact, I want to know about that because I want to have a contact with the local contact and the homeowner.”

“The local contact is the linchpin of this whole process,” said Chris Hoth, the commission’s chairman . “You must have a person who is responsible.”

Complainants have to be able to get that information, he said. “If that’s not happening, they need to contact you to find out why it’s not working.”

Flory will return to the commission next month with a proposal for easier access to owner or property management contacts. Information could include the address of the rental property, date of incident, type of complaint and description. “My goal is to document, document, document,” he said.

Neighbors or complainants would be asked to contact the owner or property manager before filing a formal complaint with the code enforcement officer.

Complainants must give their name and contact information to do away with the “hearsay complaint,” Flory said.

“I don’t want them complaining to you until they complain to the local contact,” Hoth said. “I want to be able to document what the local contact is doing or not doing. If it doesn’t get taken care of, then they file a complaint with you, it’s time for you to step in.”

‘My goal is to document, document, document.’

— Jeff Flory, enforcement officer