Repealing Ordinance 22-05 is a direct attack on basic property rights. The right to derive income by renting is guaranteed by the bundle of rights that comes with property ownership. If renting for a short term is considered commercial, then so, too, must be long term; the only difference is the length of the lease.

Those who wish to repeal the ordinance would have you believe that the ordinance which created short-term rental regulations for Arch Cape in 2003 also, in one fell swoop, silently and presumptively applied in the opposite to the entire rest of the unincorporated county.

If STRs have been illegal since 2003 as they claim, how is it possible this has managed to elude detection by community development staff, our commissioners and every county counsel for the past 20 years?

The ordinance was only enacted by the commissioners to reflect reality and add clarity to our code. It was an administrative act to make emphatically clear that basic property rights, rights so fundamental they aren’t even mentioned in the development code, will continue to be upheld in Clatsop County.

If NIMBYs want to fabricate a loophole based on the false premise of presumption, then I praise the commissioners for enacting a simple clarifying ordinance to emphatically close it and uphold basic rights for all of us, and not kowtowing to a minority interest.

Scott Harn

Arch Cape