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This article* from April 1 is incredibly one-sided in favor of taking away people’s existing businesses that they have developed for years. I run an STR out of my own home in a rural setting and this measure would take away my right to continue.
Is it fair that all Clatsop voters get to vote on the fate of less than 90 units in the unincorporated areas of Clatsop?
Astoria, Arch Cape, Cannon Beach, Seaside and Warrenton are where most of the population live and where we already have regulations in place that will not be affected by this measure. Yet those residents get to vote on whether or not I can keep the STR that I’ve built up and run for 5 years with no complaints. I am in a rural setting and plan to run this vacation rental on my property as part of my retirement plan. Now they are voting on taking that right away from me and just a relative handful of others. It will not make a dent in housing and the instigators know this. They just want STRs out of their gated communities.
The people that started this ballot initiative live in exclusive communities. They should address their concerns with their local home-owner associations rather than force them down the entire county’s throat. I talked to one of my fellow owners who bought a home in a gated community in Gearhart. He could not afford the home without renting it out as an STR part time. He told me that, from time-to-time certain individuals seek to ban STRs in their community, but that they are consistently voted down.
It seems to me that the opposition created a smear campaign demonizing STRs as the cause of all evils. Then they found the signatures to get this on our ballot. They are hoping people will buy into the idea that housing is expensive because of these 90 or so units.
I have a list of STR owners in unincorporated Clatsop and I’ve called them all in an effort to get organized. None of them are faceless corporations. They are all regular people well down there in the 99%. I can get you some of their stories if you want to print them.
I recently joined an organization called Everyone for the North Oregon Coast (https://everyoneforthenorthoregoncoast.com/).
Rather than creating a false narrative (and I do believe the opposition knows it is false) we are promoting the benefits of tourism and the need for harmony in the community. We want to work with everyone to address nuisance complaints and to ask how tourism money can be used to help finance more affordable housing.
Keith Miller
Seaside
*https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/clatsop-county-residents-fight-for-publics-right-to-vote-as-vacation-rental-industry-seeks-to-block-local-election-petitioners-of-measure-4-221-filed-a-motion-to-intervene-today-on-a-case-br/
EDITOR’S NOTE: Circuit Court Judge Kirk Wintermute on Thursday, April 27th, denied a request for an injunction against ballot measure 4-221 in the May election that would repeal a Clatsop County vacation rental ordinance. Voters will decide on Measure 4-221, which would repeal an ordinance approved by the county Board of Commissioners last June that recognized vacation rentals as permitted uses in 16 unincorporated zones in the development code.
