Bend councilors OK new vacation rental rules

It took more than three hours of debate and wordsmithing, but Bend city councilors accomplished their mission Wednesday night and agreed to a sweeping set of rules and limits on the proliferation of short-term rentals that have left many residents dismayed at the fast-changing, hollowed-out atmosphere of their neighborhoods.

It was going to take – and got – two unanimous endorsements to include emergency clauses on an issue that burst into view last year.

That means that in two weeks, councilors can formally adopt the new one-year operating licenses and the land-use approval code, density limits and permit requirements aimed at curbing the fast-rising tide of vacation rentals that has climbed to nearly 40 percent in a few neighborhoods.

City Attorney Mary Winters said the timeline means the city can move toward enacting the new short-term rental operating license program Sept. 1.

The potential for lawsuits kept the city from imposing many of the limits retroactively on the flood of recent approvals or requests in the pipeline. But councilors expressed the new rules will roll back the tide over time, such as limits on ownership transfers, which mean a property can’t be sold and keep an existing license.

The city hopes to ease the issues of noise, parking and the like with a “good neighbor policy” and a requirement of a 24/7 phone number for neighbors to call, if loud parties or other issues intrude.

Two nights after councilors heard some six hours of testimony at a public hearing on the topic, planners used a series of maps and estimates to guide them through a key unresolved matter: setting density limits on the number of short-term rentals in a neighborhood.

In the end, the council rejected the idea of a percentage cap on the rentals, and chose a density limit of one short-term rental within 250 feet of the property line of another. Councilor Sally Russell resisted dropping the percentage aspect, noting that a 23-member citizen task force and seven-member planning commission had recommended both the percentage and distance limits.

In fact, Councilor Doug Knight wanted a higher figure – only one short-term rental every 400 feet – but he, too, relented to keep the needed unanimity after City Attorney Mary Winters said that would be a big enough change from the proposal before them that they’d likely need to allow more testimony, thus delaying enactment for weeks, if not months.

Councilors also agreed that, at least for now, the non-transferable nature of new permits when a home is sold won’t apply to existing permits as well. (The yearly operating licenses, expected to cost $200 to $300, can’t be transferred.) Again, they hope that attrition over time will ease the problem in the city’s most-affected areas, while not raising the specter of more lawsuits from owners of existing vacation rental owners (though that’s always a possibility.)

And depending on how the new policies and limits work – or don’t work – Mayor Jim Clinton said “there will be plenty of tweaks” down the road. They left how far down the road to discuss another day. But Winters noted that if a permit is revoked for failing to meet conditions or issues that arise, the process will allow an appeal – to the city council.

Knight reminded his colleagues and the audience that he’s a “staunch proponent of livability in neighborhoods.” And while residents of some areas feel overrun, with 30 or 40 percent short-term rentals, he added, “as much as I want to protect those neighborhoods now, we need to get something on the books.”

Besides, as colleague Victor Chudowsky put it, “If you have a permit now, we can’t pull the rug out from someone” without legal repercussions.

Councilor Barb Campbell noted the two extremes of the complaints – the “loud noisy vacation partiers, and the ghost towns” during less-busy shoulder seasons, when people “want to have actual neighbors.”

Another issue discussed and decided was about owner-occupied short-term rentals. They still will require a permit and license, and like the rest have to pay room taxes, but won’t be subjected to the new density requirements and can have up to two rooms in the home used for rentals.

After the vote (which came after 11 p.m.), Clinton noted they were also creating some 700 “non-conforming uses” – the existing approved (or in the pipeline) short-term rentals that don’t come under many of the new requirements.

And he called it “part of our responsibility here to come up with some type of procedure to reduce or eliminate non-conforming uses.”

It was late, everyone was weary, but when it was time for “council action and reports,” Campbell couldn’t resist bringing up another recent controversy: last weekend’s police shooting of a cougar atop Pilot Butte.

“Don’t kill our cougars,” she said – not sounding angry, just tired and somewhat forlorn. To her right, colleague Casey Roats said, “I support the actions of our police department.” Councilor Nathan Boddie suggested staff perhaps should draft guidelines for dealing with “non-domesticated dangerous animals.”

At that, City Manager Eric King offered to have Police Chief Jim Porter, still in the audience, address the issue. But instead, all agreed it was late to get into the matter, and Campbell added that she “absolutely supports” police protecting children and other residents in such cases.