PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council reversed course from the most restrictive option for short-term rental regulations and approved an ordinance Wednesday night that would cap whole house STRs at 200 citywide.
The 4-3 vote, which came after several amendments and two nights of deliberations, also includes a priority system for those currently compliant with location-based zones and a lottery system that will be implemented Aug. 1
“This is a compromise,” Council member Amy Miller said as she made the motion. “I don’t like it. I’m not happy with it, but I also think that you aren’t happy with it.
“I really do feel this is meeting in the middle.”
Miller called her proposal Option C+/B- because it was between Option B, which would have capped STRs at 250 licenses within the city, and Option C, the amendment the council preferred on a 4-3 vote on Feb. 20 that would have limited STRs to 100 licenses.
As it stands, the cap will be set at 200 licenses or 2 percent of the city’s housing stock, whichever is greater, and it will become effective July 1, when a platform-based licensing program is expected to go live. Enforcement is expected to begin Nov. 1.
There will be no restrictions on location or zones under the new ordinance, a change from the 2017 code that the city had a difficult time enforcing.
There also will be no restrictions on Type I STRs, which refer to a room or other space rented to another party within the owner’s primary residence.
The ordinance incorporates Senate Bill 5334, which would provide local governments an option for affordable housing funding.
Among the other directives, it will allow fire life-safety inspections to be determined by the Community and Economic Development staff in one- , three- or five-year increments, and a Good Neighbor policy mechanism was put in place for a two-year license revocation for a third violation within a 36-month period.
In addition, only one unit will be allowed per license, with one STR license per person and one license per parcel.
For more on this story, see Friday’s print edition of Peninsula Daily News.
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Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-417-3531 or by email at brian.mclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
Earlier story
PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council discussed a series of amendments to its pending short-term rental ordinance, but it wasn’t able to come to an agreement on the full legislation, which would potentially cap whole house STRs to 100 licences in certain zones and eliminate the nonconforming section from city code.
Tuesday night’s meeting, which adjourned just after 10 p.m., was continued to 6 p.m. Wednesday at council chambers, 321 E. Fifth St., in Port Angeles, after the Peninsula Daily News’ deadline. About 150 people attended Tuesday, overflowing council chambers.
About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside of City Hall prior to the meeting, calling for the council to reconsider its preference.
The ordinance centers on housing and its availability for people who live and work here, Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said Wednesday.
“When we try to build more housing without first addressing the high incentives people have to do Airbnbs, which means building a house and then using it as a non-housing asset, it’s kind of like filling a bathtub without first stopping the drain,” he said.
Schromen-Wawrin on Tuesday proposed five amendments, which ranged from fixing up a blighted property to qualify for a short-term rental license to the frequency of STR inspections and the application of a state Senate Bill 5334, which would provide local governments an option for affordable housing funding.
They also included new infill unit construction, granting a short-term license to an owner who builds a new unit and either uses their original dwelling or the new unit as a long-term rental.
Council members voted to pass those amendments, but since they are part of the overall package that had yet to be voted on, they weren’t technically approved Tuesday.
Whole house rentals are known as Type II STRs, which would be capped at 100 in the rural medium density, rural high density and commercial districts with the exception of the Central Business District, which would be exempt.
Type I short-term rentals, which would be unlimited in city limits except for industrial and park areas, refer to a room or other space rented to another party within the owner’s primary residence.
If passed, a licensing system is scheduled to be available for STR owners beginning July 1, and the city would begin enforcing the new ordinance Nov. 1.
Council deliberated for more than two hours Tuesday after two hours of public comment that included 47 speakers, the vast majority of whom supported Option B, which would cap STRs at 250 within city limits or at 3 percent of the overall housing stock, whichever is greater.
The council is considering Option C, which would cap STR licenses at 100 or 1 percent of the overall housing stock, whichever is greater.
A city survey last year found 234 total STR operators, 49 of whom were in compliance with location-based zoning requirements from its 2017 code update and 185 who have been operating illegally.
Council member Brendan Meyer proposed a solution that included Option B, but it failed on a 5-2 vote, with council member Drew Schwab the other supporter.
“I can’t support the current ordinance as it’s written,” Meyer said of Option C. “Coming out of COVID, it would be like throwing a hand grenade into our economy.”
He added that the council needs to be careful about unintended consequences and argued that concentrating all of the city’s STRs in certain zones would not be beneficial.
“You’ll wind up losing housing for middle-income people,” he said, adding that 3 percent of the city’s housing stock is “such a small segment of our housing.”
Most of the public speakers agreed.
Rose Thompson, the newly appointed executive director of the Dungeness Crab Festival, said tourists are still going to come to Port Angeles, but they won’t stay in city limits or eat in local restaurants, and that will hurt the city’s lodging tax funds.
Former mayor Karen Rogers called the proposed ordinance “an overreach at its best.”
Lynn Bedford, co-owner of Coldwell Banker Uptown Realty in Port Angeles, said she was “shocked and horrified” when she read about the council’s “misguided vote.”
“Jobs will be lost in our community, and we’ll be poorer for it,” she said.
Three members of the city planning commission, which voted 3-2 on Feb. 28 to recommend Option B to the council, spoke on their own behalf, encouraging the council to reconsider its preference.
“Where was the protest when the trailer park was ripped out and the Starbucks was put in?” James Taylor asked. “Why aren’t we opening up land so we could build?”
Marolee Smith, a planning commission member, said the ordinance is unconstitutional and called it arbitrary, discriminatory and “an infringement on private property owners’ rights.”
Others who spoke in support of Option B included Marsha Massey, the executive director of the Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau, and Victoria Jones, the race director for the North Olympic Discovery Marathon.
But Schromen-Wawrin argued in favor of the cap at 100 STR licenses, saying it will free up housing stock.
“Prior to the pandemic, housing in Port Angeles was maybe 8 or 9 percent out-of-area ownership,” he said Wednesday. “After the pandemic, it rose to about 40 percent of out-of-area owners, based on their tax parcel information. A whole lot of people bought property in Port Angeles in the last four years or so.”
He cited a Feb. 15 story from the New York Times that listed Port Angeles eighth in the 25 cities nationwide for best investments in a short-term rental.
“That should be alarm bells for us,” he said.
For a report on Wednesday night’s meeting, see Friday’s edition.
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Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-417-3531 or by email at brian.mclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
