STR progress: Commission gets down to business, should retrace steps on sub-renter idea

On the other hand, it was an occasion for some fairly pithy statements, such as “better used than dark,” referring to some members’ preference that property owners receive latitude for renting their homes to avoid the fate that some owners say they will place upon their homes: leave them dark and unoccupied for the six or so months they are not living there.

The commission agreed on 60-day annual limits for renting a home, which gives property owners and managers something to focus on, and the commission is at near-consensus on wanting the city to evolve to where STRs are one day limited to commercial districts. (The proposed regulations now before the city affect only residential zones.)

One specific point should be revisited by the commission, however: its split decision to recommend that long-term renters be allowed to sub-rent the house to short-term renters.

“Let the owner beware,” said commission member Victor Pavlenko.

Except it would be more like “let the neighbor beware.” The property owner needs to be directly responsible for any accessory use of the dwelling.

Anything else raises some practical complications and goes against the spirit of the whole short term rental regulation arm of addressing the affordable housing issue.

Adding one more layer of responsibility is one of the possibly negative impacts of allowing a long term renter to serve as defacto landlord for short term arrangements within his or her use of the dwelling. It pads the possibility of abuse and potentially puts neighbors, and the city itself, one step farther away from having any recourse if something goes wrong.

It was a 4-3 decision on recommending that renters can serve as landlords, and it should be put back on the table and discussed a second time. It may have been intended as a way to offer flexibility, but is an idea that has not been aired sufficiently and should be rescinded.

The bottom line is that commission chair Nate DeVol is correct in saying, “We are not meeting our basic needs for housing.”

Working on short term rentals before other code or zoning adjustments might not be to everyone’s preference as an overall approach, but the city has embarked on the STR course of action and the city needs to finish it up and tackle the direct questions of how to expand the number of affordable housing units in the city or make available the land needed to do so.