Planning commissioners in Clallam County spent substantial time Thursday discussing whether and how the county should address short-term rentals in its comprehensive plan, amid public comment asserting those rentals are contributing to a local housing shortage.

The discussion matters, commissioners said, because policies in the comprehensive plan will guide future zoning, incentives and enforcement that affect housing stock, tourism economies and rural character across the county.

John Worthington of Sequim, a public commenter, urged the commission to treat short-term rentals as a major driver of housing scarcity. "I think most people would agree that short term rentals have impacted the rental market and availability for housing in general," he said, then cited county-level housing figures and an estimate of roughly 1,000 short-term rentals countywide.

Commissioners and staff debated what action to embed in the plan. Commissioner Dan May asked whether the commission wanted "language that directs us to analyze the problem further," noting that some commissioners favored directing staff to develop a focused assessment before adopting firm restrictions.

During discussion, speakers pointed to examples from other Washington counties and cities — San Juan and Tacoma among them — as models for crafting targeted approaches, and noted trade-offs between protecting long-term housing and preserving the tourism economy that supports local restaurants and lodging businesses.

Panelists raised a range of possible policy tools discussed in other jurisdictions: geographic limits on short-term rentals, incentives for owners to convert units back to long-term rentals, targeted tax or licensing changes, and prioritizing workforce and resident housing in certain areas. Several commissioners emphasized that any policy should be evidence-based and tailored to local conditions.

The public and commissioners also flagged data gaps. One presenter used Census-derived household figures and the estimate that 27% of housing units are rentals to illustrate how a thousand short-term rentals could represent a substantial share of available rental units; those numbers were presented as speaker estimates rather than a staff-confirmed analysis.

No formal motion or vote on specific short-term rental regulations was recorded at the meeting. Instead, commissioners continued the draft-review process, with staff noting edits to the public-comment summary and to recommended draft language. The transcript shows commissioners asked staff to return with clearer analyses and potential policy language for future meetings rather than adopting immediate regulatory changes.

Next steps: staff will continue revising draft comprehensive plan language and working papers; commissioners requested additional data and examples to evaluate regulatory and incentive options before any formal policy adoption.