— from Gregory Oaksen for The Vacation Rental Work Group —
What can be done to reasonably limit the growing number of vacation rentals in the San Juans? This question was posed to approximately 160 people who attended the second Community Conversation on vacation rentals held on September 25. In response to concerns expressed at the first Community Conversation on July 17, Erika Shook, San Juan County Director of Community Development, presented existing County regulations for vacation rentals. Four additional speakers summarized short-term rental impacts on housing, water consumption, septic systems, ferry use, emergency medical care and local businesses and shared what other communities across the nation are doing to control vacation rentals.
When is tourism too much tourism? This was another question asked as it relates to vacation rental contributions to visitor loads. Overtourism is being protested in heavily impacted areas worldwide. The question is how to limit vacation rentals and the resulting overtourism in the San Juan Islands. Those attending were asked to express their most pressing vacation rental concerns and what kinds of measures they would like to see enacted, if any. A set of topics and possible regulations that were developed from the first Community Conversation were presented and individuals were asked to vote for their preferences. Items that received the most votes included:
- place a moratorium on new vacation rental permits until new regulations are adopted (147),
- support housing for year-round residents (81),
- allow new vacation rental permits only for parcels that are owner-occupied (78),
- prohibit future permits from passing to new owners on sale of the parcel (73), and
- slow the rate of growth and commercialization of the islands (71).
Votes on other topics considered to be important and possible regulations were recorded and will be tabulated and included on the vacation rental website: vacationrentalsorcas.org.
The next Community Conversation will be held on Wednesday, October 23 to discuss how to enact specific strategies to limit vacation rentals.
We hope you will attend!
Note, please, that the most votes by far were placed for doing nothing.
A moratorium is merely “marching in place” while waiting for someone else to do something.
A moratorium is not a solution, nor is it a move toward a solution.
I suggest that the format for these “Community Conversations,” which do not involve the whole community, and neither are they conversations, is all wrong.
The present mode is aimed at efficiency, but neither democracy nor the workings of a republic should perforce be “efficient.”
Instead, we should be having New-England-style town meetings, in which all participants have an opportunity to speak to the entire group.
Why not start with demanding that anyone who speaks against VR’s be banned from having one and if they already do, they must convert it to low income housing at a rate deemed “affordable” by the Town? I suspect some of the naysayers are actually owners…
In order to slow the rate of growth, it would be good to ban replacement of any business that closes; the fewer businesses, the less for tourists to find attractive…It’s easy to ban issuing any new business licenses.
Personally, I am against these approaches, but there are lots of easy solutions if the real goal is to return Orcas to how it looked circa 1940 (or whatever year the group decides was ideal.)
Make it a lottery with a limited award measured against housing need.
The most successful solution IMHO would have to do with determining sustainable goals, not “limiting growth” which is a meaningless slogan and unlegislable and unenforceable.
Personally I would like to limit visitors ##’s to be just less than the amount needed to make me want to get back in the car when I walk into the Market and see the gridlock. If there were a way to keep a running average of the number of people in the checkout line and automatically limit how many visitors can get on the next ferry .. or rent a vacation rental .. in real time, that would be ideal. Put that in every contract and in itself would limit popularity…
sayin’ ..
or do like ICE and round people up and put them in holding pens until the next ferry.. or until a vacation rental comes open.
the possibilities are endless. extra charge for a blanket.
Then there’s the big wall between Orcas and Lopez. [Lopez! who named that island anyhow!?] Or we could use Shaw as a designated holding area where you can apply to get on a skiff to Orcas, and you have to take holy orders if you’re around too long. There could be like, a whole black economy with coyotes bringing folks in through Obstruction Pass at night.. Big profit there btw..
This whole vacation rental thing, I mean, $500 for one night! The whole thing is ripe! I say raise quality, limit access and raise fees!! Supply & demand, man. We’ve got the wrong end of this economics stick! This next meeting should be like a marketing war council. We could retire and make people pay to wait tables. Learn how the other half [US] lives.
Leif, there are island like Tangier that have a single ferry/day, so the limit is about 200 visitors and residents total/day and they don’t take cars. Asking WSF to reduce ferries is all that would need to be done and the problem disappears. Simple, cheap, and elegant. Orcas circa 1940 is easily achieved…The ferry is the lifeblood of the cancerous growth of the island, Cut off the blood supply and the tumor will die.
“Overtourism is being protested in heavily impacted areas worldwide. The question is how to limit vacation rentals and the resulting overtourism in the San Juan Islands.” Again, assumptions for facts not in evdience.
Neil–so far as I can tell, one of the loudest naysyaers owns at least one vacation rental. Perhaps all speakers should be asked to disclose whether they do?