By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – It wasn’t unanimous, but a motion was passed at Tuesday’s Port Angeles City Council meeting that appears to move the contentious Short Term Rental issue into the final phase of getting a new ordinance.
The council went an hour past its usual 4-hour limit debating ordinance Options B and C, after agreeing that Option A, which set no limitations on how many STRs there could be or where they could be located was impractical.
When the motion carried by a 4-3 vote, with Mayor Dexter and councilors Schwab and Meyer opposed, the council directed staff to prepare an ordinance based on Option C for the March 5 meeting, with exemptions allowing for economically-distressed existing illegal STRs to become “nonconforming licensees” under temporary STR licenses.
Other amendments to Option C include requirements that there be only one unit per STR license, one STR license per person, and one STR license per parcel. Option C would cap the total number of STRs at 100 city-wide.
Councilman Brendan Meyer made it clear that he was unhappy that Option B, a much simpler ordinance, wasn’t being taken more seriously.
“Sometimes I hear people say like, “Oh, compromise is where both parties leave unhappy.” And I hate that. Because if we think compromise, we sort of think of diplomacy too, and in diplomacy you want people walking away feeling that they both got something out of the deal. The option B, for me, is where it’s at. Because, in like a hundred years, are you going to need to be a lawyer just to be a citizen to understand the code? This is simply written. It puts a cap on the short-term rentals. This is what we want.”
Councilman Lyndsey Schromen-Wawrin advocated for Option C, which will eliminate hundreds of existing but illegal STRs in Port Angeles.
“The tourist economy doesn’t change if those 200 Airbnb’s disappear. Like, the whole time that Mayor Dexter and I have been on Council, we’ve been working on housing. It’s been a top priority. And we’re basically in the same spot that we started in. And not because of anything we did as the council. This was people starting illegal investment properties that took housing out of the housing stock. We have the opportunity and the choices before us to return those houses to the housing stock, start using the housing in Port Angeles for the residents of Port Angeles, for the people who want to move here or live here who can’t find a place to live. I think that needs to be our priority if we actually want to do our job, and protect health, safety and welfare.”
The council will take up the issue again at their regular meeting on March 5, and they are expected to take a vote on the amended version of Option C.