PORT ANGELES — On a 4-3 vote, the Port Angeles City Council updated an ordinance to clarify the definition of a Type I short-term rental.
The change, set to go into effect on May 16, will affect about six properties currently licensed as Type I short-term rentals, assistant City Manager Calvin Goings said.
Last year, the city council adopted Ordinance 3728, implementing detailed regulations for short-term rental operations with hopes of increasing the housing stock in the city. The change was effective last July 1.
The ordinance classified short-term rentals into three categories: Type I, Type II and bed and breakfasts.
Type II short-term rental licenses, issued for accommodations that are not the owner’s or lessee’s principal residence, are limited to 200 within city limits. Type I short-term rental licenses and bed and breakfast licenses have no cap.
Type I short-term rentals were defined as dwellings that are the owner or lessee’s principal residence. Additionally, the owner or lessee must be personally present in the dwelling during the rental period, and the dwelling cannot be congregate housing.
The new Type I definition adds a fourth prong, stipulating that Type I licenses will only be issued or renewed for a property where the rental rooms are located within the same structure envelope as the primary residential use.
Structure envelope is defined as “the physical barrier that separates the inside of a building from the outside and includes the building’s exterior walls, roof, foundation, doors and windows,” according to the council agenda.
Under the new definition, rooms in detached or satellite accessory structures will not qualify for a Type I license even if they are on the same lot as the primary residence.
The six or so detached short-term rentals that are currently licensed as Type Is can retain their licenses until they expire, at which point Goings said they must reapply for a Type II license. The city will not issue Type I licenses for applications currently being processed if the structures do not meet the updated definition.
“This language clears up the spirit of what we passed a year ago and provides an opportunity for people, if they are part of these six, to apply for a Type II [license] now or to wait until their license is up, and apply for the correct license, which is Type II,” council member Navarra Carr said.
The definition change passed 4-3, with council members Kate Dexter, Amy Miller and Brendan Meyer opposing.
Dexter and Miller both said they were looking forward to discussing the short-term rental code and its impacts at a scheduled work session in November.
“This is a motion about semantics,” Meyer said, noting there may be instances in which someone has a detached structure — such as a room above their garage — that isn’t likely to become housing but could be rented out as a short-term rental.
“To push what would be considered a short-term rental Type I to become Type IIs is sort of circumventing the cap and artificially lowering the cap,” Meyer said.
In an effort to clarify some concerns Meyer had about the code, they proposed striking “the owner or designated lessee is personally present in the dwelling during the rental period” from the definition of Type I short-term rentals.
That would allow owners who typically live in Port Angeles, but leave for several months for a variety of reasons, to rent their house as a Type I short-term rental while they are gone.
That amendment failed, 6-1.
“If someone wants to have a short-term rental and not be present, they can do that,” council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said, noting the owner could apply to run it as a Type II short-term rental.
During public comment, two citizens requested the grandfathering of currently licensed Type I short-term rentals, allowing them to continue licensing as Type Is even if they don’t fit the new definition. Some compared it to an ordinance passed by the city council last August that allowed short-term rental operators in compliance with previous codes to operate multiple Type II rentals — even though other operators were limited to one license per parcel, per owner and per marital unit.
Council member Drew Schwab moved to allow properties currently operating as Type I rentals to remain such, until sold by the owner.
“At the end of the day, they [the Type I short-term rentals] were licensed by us,” he said. “I’ve always supported allowing nonconforming or grandfathering whenever things are changed, especially because this [the short-term rental code] hasn’t even been all that long.”
That motion failed 5-2, with Schwab and Meyer supporting.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
