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Depoe Bay council delays short-term rental ordinance amid dispute over proposed fee hikes
Summary
Council debated large increases for short-term rental licensing and broader business-license restructuring; members agreed to advance a single interim business-license fee while deferring the short-term rental ordinance and seeking additional analysis on enforcement and cost recovery.
The Depoe Bay City Council spent prolonged discussion on Nov. 12 over a proposed overhaul of business-license fees and a separate short-term rental licensing structure. Staff presented Resolution 565-24 to revise fees across categories and to introduce a new short-term rental fee based on occupancy. Councilors questioned how the new system compares to existing lodging fees and whether enforcement and compliance costs had been calculated.
Councilor Marcella said the draft short-term structure would sharply increase costs for some hosts, citing staff figures that showed a proposed short-term-rental surcharge that would place total licensing for a typical three-bedroom vacation home in the hundreds of dollars—multiple times the city’s prior flat lodging fee. "5600% just seems to be extremely high to me," she said, pressing staff for comparative data and for scenarios showing how enforcement or monitoring costs would be funded.
Staff and councilors agreed short-term rentals should be regulated but noted the resolution lacked accompanying ordinance language spelling out inspection fees, fire inspections and compliance procedures. Several councilors proposed an interim, simpler approach: set a single general business-license fee and return with refined ordinance language for short-term rentals. A motion to adopt an across-the-board business-license fee (the motion proposed $150) and to defer the short-term rental ordinance until more analysis was provided received support.
Council asked staff to: provide a cost estimate for compliance monitoring (including examples of third-party enforcement providers), outline when audits or grant rules might affect eligibility for certain grant-funded projects, and return with a draft short-term rental ordinance that defines inspection and compliance fees. No final short-term rental ordinance was adopted at the Nov. 12 meeting.
