Clatsop County is evaluating new rules on vacation rentals as a moratorium on permits is set to expire this month.

At a public hearing last week, county commissioners will consider amending the development code to allow vacation rentals in more than a dozen zones where they are not an explicitly permitted use but where many still operate. The board will also weigh several proposed code revisions that address standards for operating short-term rental units.

Such standards could include requiring property owners to post good-neighbor flyers listing rules around quiet hours, speed limits, parking, litter, trespassing, pets, drones, fires, fireworks and other points of contention, according to the county staff report. Owners would also have to post emergency information about wildfires, tsunamis, landslides and power outages.

The new rules would forbid owners from transferring permits to new owners, who would need fresh permits and unit inspections. Permits would expire after two years instead of five. The number of visitors per unit would be determined by septic capacity, or restricted to two people per sleeping area — up to 14 people total.

A local agent or property representative would be required to respond to complaints, which would be tiered according to severity.

If adopted, the new standards would exist in the county code alongside separate standards for Arch Cape, an unincorporated community where short-term rentals have been an allowable use since the early 2000s.

The board meeting comes two weeks before a county moratorium on issuing new short-term rental permits is scheduled to expire.

Pushback

Cities and counties along the Oregon Coast have struggled to balance the growth of tourism with the challenges of regulating short-term rentals that can disrupt residential neighborhoods. The lodging taxes and economic benefits can often be overshadowed by excessive noise, parking problems and trash at rentals of 30 or fewer days.

In the unincorporated areas of Clatsop County in recent years, the proliferation of vacation rentals — a trend intensified by Airbnb and Vrbo — has led to pushback, particularly from residents in South County’s Cove Beach neighborhood.

The topic reveals tension between rental owners — some of whom manage units that predate the recent vacation rental explosion — and residents who seek to preserve the quiet spirit of neighborhoods that they fear will be overrun by commercial enterprises.

The pressure to restrict vacation rentals also stems from the countywide housing crunch. A housing study released in 2019 found that much of the local housing stock is tied up by second homes and short-term rentals.

“The growth of short-term rental activity, made easier by new website and app platforms, is likely exacerbating the perceived housing shortage and lack of affordability,” the report found. “While the Oregon Coast has always had vacation rental activity, these technologies have facilitated the management of vacation housing for income generation.”

In 2018, the county passed an ordinance to handle health and safety concerns, regulating the previously unregulated ventures.

Nuisance complaints, many clustered in the Cove Beach area, soon began to crop up. A handful of short-term rental owners claim that some complaints have been baseless or exaggerated. These opposing views have been aired in a slew of town halls and county commission meetings. Since late 2019, the county has held more than 20 meetings where short-term rentals were addressed.

Last summer, county commissioners approved a moratorium on issuing new short-term rental permits. The freeze went into effect in September and was extended in December. The moratorium is set to expire on April 28, the day after the board is scheduled to hold a second hearing on the issue.

Based on direction from county commissioners, county staff has recommended that the board allow short-term rentals in four commercial and 12 residential areas, from rural lands around Astoria to Clatsop Plains to coastal communities like Cove Beach, just north of the county line.

Last month, a divided Planning Commission voted to recommend that the board permit short-term rentals in only six of those areas, zoned either commercial or multifamily residential, and remove rentals from other residential zones, including Cove Beach’s Coastal Residential zone.

“The properties in question here — 16 different zones — were zoned the way they were for a reason,” Christopher Farrar, the Planning Commission’s vice chairman, said. “And in most cases — not all — but in most of the cases, it’s rural residential kind of living. It’s not business.”

Planning Commissioner John Orr found persuasive an opinion written by Daniel Kearns, a Portland land use attorney retained by Cove Beach residents, that reads: “Because STRs are not listed as a permitted use in the Coastal Residential zone, they are presumptively not allowed.”

Pointing out that the county’s Land and Water Development and Use Code specifically allows short-term rentals in Arch Cape, Kearns writes: “A long-standing (tenet) of zoning code interpretation is that, where a use is specifically listed as allowed in one zone, but omitted from the list of uses in another zone, it is presumed to not be allowed in the other zone.”

Asked about the claim that the county has been issuing permits in violation of its own code, Patty Jo Angelini, the county’s public affairs officer, said in an email that, if the board adopts the zoning changes, “these amendments will address (Kearns’) allegation that the county is illegally permitting STRs in zones other than Arch Cape.”

Kearns writes that, in Cove Beach, “approximately 30% of the homes are operated as STRs, which is far beyond a healthy or normal proportion.”

The Planning Commission also recommended making short-term rentals, currently allowed with no public notice or public hearing, into a conditional use. That process would require a public notice, a public hearing and other steps. This change would apply to Arch Cape, as well.

Another Planning Commission recommendation is to approve the county staff’s direction — 16 zones, plus Arch Cape — but cap the number of short-term rentals permitted in the future.

Disallowing short-term rentals in the residential zones that the Planning Commission objected to would lead to a phasing out of the rentals that already operate in them as owners’ licenses expire.

Gail Henrikson, the county’s community development director, said the Planning Commission’s recommendation would eliminate more than half of short-term rentals — 109 of the 186, using September’s figures — operating in unincorporated areas, including in places where neighbors have not raised complaints.

The county staff report said the Planning Commission’s recommendation would have a fiscal impact of up to $561,994. This figure includes at least a $499,181 loss in lodging taxes.

‘Illogical, unethical, immoral’

Charles Dice, a Cove Beach resident and leader in the push to remove short-term rentals from residential neighborhoods, wrote in a letter to the Planning Commission that allowing rentals in residential zones “benefits only one group — the property owners of STRs.”

For the county commissioners to allow them, he wrote, “seems to be illogical, unethical, immoral, and (a) great example of bad governance and of dismissing the ‘will of the people’ in favor of the financial interests of a special interest group.”

Nancy Chase has been renting her Cove Beach bungalow since the early 1990s, long before internet platforms simplified the operation. “At that time, no one seemed to have a problem with you renting your house,” she said.

She said short-term rentals provide an option for families who want to have an affordable vacation at the coast for a few days.

If the county bans vacation rentals in her area, one possible outcome, she said, is that she sells the property once her license expires.

Another, she said, is that she finds a longer-term renter.