Sisters working to craft vacation rental policies

The city of Sisters is looking to make sure its neighborhoods are not overrun by vacation rental properties.

City Manager Brant Kucera said Thursday he knows that the rental market is important for the city of Sisters, as it is so dependent on tourism for its economy.

Kucera said it is difficult to regulate the rental market and find a way to make sure that everyone involved is taken care of.

“The city really sees this as a very delicate balancing act,” Kucera said. “We want to come up with very common-sense regulations, that protect people’s right to their own private property, but at the same time protect the rights of all of our citizens.”

Matt Tesdall, the owner of Sisters Vacation Rentals, said he knows that there has to be some regulations in place to make sure that vacation rentals don’t overtake neighborhoods.

Tesdall said the issue is not unique to just Sisters, but is one cities across the country are facing. Bend officials spent a great deal of time on the issue in recent years and put restrictions in place.

“If you look around the country and you see what Airbnb has done, HomeWave, VRBO, Expedia, that the short-term vacation rental type scenarios are’t going to go anywhere,” Tedall said. “And some regulation is fine, but we just don’t want to overdo it.”

Tesdall said the number of homes for rent in Sisters is very small to begin with, so regulations, if done wrong, could hurt the industry greatly.

Julie Kelleher recently sold her rental business, but prior to that had been in Sisters for 14 years running her business.

Kelleher said she has seen the industry change quite a bit, with online services for rentals becoming very popular.

She also said that Sisters is so dependent on tourism that right now it doesn’t seem lie this issue is a big problem for the city.

“I kind of understand where they are going. I don’t really think that there is a danger right now with neighborhoods being overrun with vacation rentals,” Kelleher said. “What is it, 3 percent of the properties in Sisters are vacation rentals? Three percent? That doesn’t sound threatening to me.”

Kelleher said she believes if you have a vacation rental property, you should be able to use that to make money without being too hindered by rules set in place.

She said she hopes that the city will be able to work with vacation rental property owners to reach common ground.

Sisters officials said they hope to have a resolution on the issue before city councilors by the end of the year.