By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles City Council on Tuesday adopted an ordinance that makes some important adjustments to short term rental regulations.
The new rules that were adopted in March included a limit of one short-term lodging business license per owner, per married couple, and per parcel. That rule has now been changed to allow more than one license per owner.
Mayor Kate Dexter told us on Wednesday that the city council’s motivation behind the change was based largely on the fact that the ordinance’s cap of only 200 short term rentals city-wide was not met during the application period.
“And so some of those folks who made choices to start businesses that were legal at the time felt penalized by the ordinance, and I think had we hit the cap that just would have been the way it is. But because we had room, the amendment that we made basically grandfather’s those few people and their businesses in with the existing licenses. So we didn’t increase the cap, and it is also for these people only. So, if at some point they sell the house, new people can’t come in and say, “Well, I bought all these four houses and now I should have four licenses.” No, you get one license.”
The adjustment to the ordinance was not a unanimous decision, but Dexter said 4 of the council members felt it a was a reasonable exception to allow business owners who were following all the rules before the new restrictions were introduced to have more than one short term rental for as long as they own the units.
Mayor Dexter was asked to speculate on why the 200 unit cap was not met, given the number of compliant and non-compliant short term rentals that existed before the new regulations were set in March.
“If I had to guess, I think there were a number of people who were operating more than one unit in areas that were not compliant with the 2017 ordinance. And so, I think those people had to decide, “Do we sell? Do we convert it to long-term rent? What do we do with it?” But you have to choose now which of your multiple units, if you had multiple, where you going to apply for a license? So I think we may have seen some of that, that one license per person, per parcel, piece, I think, had an impact on how many applications we got.”