By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles City Council passed a vastly reworked new ordinance on Short Term Rentals Wednesday night that doubles the number of STRs allowable and puts no restrictions on where they can be located.
City staff recommended what they’re calling “Option B-minus” with no restrictions on location or number of type one short term rentals, with the definition revised to strike the requirement for “common entrance”. It includes a city-wide cap of 200 units or 2% of the total housing stock, whichever is higher on Type 2 STRs, also with no restrictions on location.
The new ordinance ensures a preference of STR license applications for those currently running compliant STRs, and implements a lottery for all completed STR license applications submitted by August 1.
It will still allow only one unit per license, one license per person, and one license per parcel. Inspections will be mandatory in 1, 3, or 5 year increments, and a so-called “Good Neighbor Policy” states “The City will revoke an STR license upon the third violation…within a 36 month period”. It would apply to complaints against the STR owners and their guests.
It barely passed with a rollcall vote of 4-3. Those against one or more of the new policies included Councilor Lyndsey Schromen-Wawrin.
“Keep in mind, none of the debate today has been about renting out your own house that you live in as an Airbnb. That’s allowed throughout the city, it’s been allowed, that’s going to continue to be allowed. That’s not the debate. We’re talking about people have more than one home, and they’ve been breaking the law, and we’re going to give him a free pass. And we think that’s more important than the registered nurse who’s commuting from Tacoma to work at Olympic Medical Center, and staying at an Airbnb because she can’t find a place to live. That’s what we’re doing tonight. And that’s a shame.”
Councilor LaTrisha Suggs objected to opening the STR ordinance to all zones in the city, and made a motion to eliminate zoning codes altogether.
“So, if we’re going to ignore that we have these zoning codes, I don’t see why we should have zones. Obviously, we are setting a precedent, that zones can be ignored. And if that’s how we’re going to allow certain groups dictate to us, well, if you want a free-for-all, just open everything up to everything, so people can do whatever they want regardless of zones. Because it’s “shame on us” for not following our policies, our codes.”
The motion didn’t pass, and Mayor Kate Dexter had this to say.
“This feels like a super interesting policy debate that I would love to have sometime, but it’s not a motion that I’m willing to support tonight. It feels like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I don’t think we gave away the farm with this motion. I think, it’s not what some people wanted to see. It’s not what anyone wanted to see, maybe. But, the motion is about eliminating the zones, and I’m not in favor of doing that. I’m happy to have a conversation, but not at tonight’s meeting about it, because I think it’s interesting, but I’m not going to do that tonight.”
The new ordinance goes into effect on July 1 of this year.