By now most Bendites have either experienced the crunch of housing first-hand—or if not, they know someone who has struggled to find rental housing or to buy a home at a reasonable price, or who has otherwise noted how elevated prices and spiking demand are impacting the quality of life here. While a city such as Bend, with its relatively clean air, relatively low traffic, good schools, beautiful parks and amazing views is not likely to stop attracting droves of people to visit or to take up residence here, the housing crisis we have all experienced over the past decade or more has hit a new high—or low—during this pandemic, and we need new tools to address it.
With prices rising astronomically and no end in sight, it’s time for local governments to increase their efforts to help provide housing for those who live right here—even if it means taking uncomfortable actions. Right now, many small businesses report struggling to find workers to staff their businesses. Some of those workers say the high cost of housing—or the lack thereof—is what is driving them out of Bend. In this way, our housing crisis is impacting not only individual quality of life, but also the economy.
While city and county officials have taken numerous steps over the years to address housing and homelessness, there’s one opportunity that we see rarely discussed: Short-term rentals. Those who live in some of the inner neighborhoods of the west and east sides have already seen “neighbors” replaced by “guests” over the years, and with the advent of sites such as Airbnb, it’s easier than ever for a homeowner to swap what could be housing for locals with a glorified hotel accommodation for tourists. Right now, the City of Bend has over 1,000 active short-term rental licenses, required for those renting whole-house rentals for more than 30 days per year. In 2020, 115 new short-term rental land use permits were issued in Bend. If each of those homes had a conservative estimate of two long-term residents in it, it means that last year, housing for around 200 Bendites went away. In total, thousands of Bendites would have housing if those houses were treated like homes and not hotels.
We know it can be more lucrative for homeowners to rent their houses on a short-term rental site instead of renting them to actual long-term renters. We know that some of Oregon’s new rent-protection laws are scaring some homeowners away from renting long-term. With the hand of the free market at play, it’s not shocking to see your neighbor decide to turn your neighborhood into a hotel zone—which is why we propose that once again, the City of Bend take a hard look at whether it isn’t time to put a moratorium on issuing new short-term rental permits in the city. The pandemic has brought on multiple and ongoing states of emergency in our state—and this is just yet one more state of emergency that requires government leaders to respond.
Bend has plenty of lovely hotels, campgrounds and existing short-term rentals where tourists are welcome to stay and play. More real hotels—sited in locations designed for commercial activity and planned to meet the needs of visitors—are coming online all the time. But as we continue to wade through the many challenges this pandemic and its housing crunch has brought, locals should be looking at the city’s short-term rental permit program with a keen eye toward whether that’s the best use of local resources.
Short-term rental properties bring in additional room tax revenue for the City of Bend, to be sure—but is that revenue worth the opportunities that are lost when businesses can’t find workers, and when good people leave town due to rising costs? In a housing crisis like the one we are experiencing, it’s time to place our focus into managing growth and responsibly managing our tourists—and consequently placing the focus on the locals who keep Bend running.
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This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2021.
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So happy to read this article. Everyone in Bend is complaining about all the development and the disappearance of open land. And yet we don’t need to turn every open space into window to window homes or multi-family housing with no parking. Stop permitting Short Term Rentals and, take it even further by putting a sunset on the permits that are already out there. Smarter cities are doing this. Bend should too. Also, HB2001 will allow more dense housing on single family home lots – but Bend’s codes allow ALL of those houses to be Short Term Rentals. So, your neighbor could sell their single family home and a developer could knock it down, put in a quadplex, and turn all 4 of those homes into Short Term Rentals. Why is the City Council allowing this? They talk and talk about equity, but it seems the new Councilors are as bad as the old – they care more about tourists than locals.
Beware of unintended consequences. Many Bend vacation rentals are actually 2nd homes and will just sit vacant most of the year if they lose their STR permits.
And in regards to Snowshoe’s comment, building 4 (or even 2) STR’s next to each other isn’t allowed in the current regulations. Also there are very few locations on the westside that allow for a new STR permit today unless the land is zoned commercial. Limits are already in place.
snowshoe is wrong – the city only allows one full-house STR per 250 ft. radius. So no, a developer cannot turn four houses next to each other into STR’s.
So glad to see this brought up. While I’m worried that it’s probably too little, too late, there are a number of policies that the City Council could absolutely be looking into: a moratorium on new STR permits, actually enforcing unpermitted STRs, disallowing the transfer of STR permits with a home sale, and supporting changes to the state tax code to disincentivize the ownership of empty/investment homes through such a critical housing shortage (a la Vancouver BC). Bend has the fourth-highest rate in the country of AirBnBs per capita (source: https://www.ipx1031.com/cities-most-airbnb-properties/) and a whopping 1 in 3 homes in Deschutes County are considered investment properties. The city can’t endlessly market itself as a great place to invest/retire/work remotely/visit without also investing in the infrastructure needed to support a community of diverse income levels & local workers. The Realtors Association will ensure that any of those efforts are squashed though. It’s hard to see how local workers like me will be able to afford to stay here- no matter how dedicated I am to my job & community. Eventually, everyone who doesn’t already own will have to decide whether it’s worth the stress of staying in a place where local wages will never match the local cost of living. Something’s gotta give, but we’ll only be able to recognize an exodus of local workers in hindsight. Thanks for covering this!
As is so often the case — before we pass new laws, we should enforce the ones already in place. Unpermitted short term rentals would be so easy to spot if the city actually wanted to find them. Airbnb sends the tax remittance *directly* to the city, and each tax payment is associated with the address. The city simply needs to cross reference the STR-permitted addresses with the tax remittances and they’d immediately know where the unpermitted rentals are occuring.
As it stands, it is up to neighbors to make a complaint, which obviously is not working (do you want to be the one to ruin the relationship with your neighbor?).
But does the city really want to cut off this lucrative trade? 10% of every Airbnb stay goes straight to them!
(Also – remember there is a current ‘concentration limit’ wherein no new STR permit can be issued when there is another STR permit within 250 feet in any direction. Those grandfathered in before that are the only exception).
After reading the editorial on the subject of short term rentals (STR’s) I felt compelled to respond with a cautionary tale. I spent 35 years in a community that struggled with this exact problem. The city council for the area struggled with the problem as well. In the end the compromise was to grandfather STR’s that had paid their taxes and abided to the rules prior to a fixed date and allowed them to continue to operate. Those in operation or in violation of rules after the decided date were not issued permits. Individuals found to continue to violate the rules were handed extreme property tax assessments as a penalty.
The cautionary tale is this did not solve or even help the problem of lack of affordable long term rentals and skyrocketing housing prices. People found ways around the rules or simply went against the ordinance and paid the increased tax because it was too lucrative.
What I witnessed in those 35 years was truly sad. What was once an actual community of working people became essentially one large horizontal hotel. Long term rentals almost completely evaporated and working class people now had to commute 2 hours from their homes to work in the community that some of them were born and raised in for generations. This created traffic every morning and evening and really ruined the character of the community.
What they found the hard way was if an area was designated residential then that is what it should be period. Long term rentals are no less than 30 days. Rental owners of long term rentals need incentives in order for them continue to do so. Role back any STR’s that exist now before it’s too late. Designate areas that are for tourists and visitors and have them stay there away from working families. It isn’t very complicated math. Take the average working person’s pay in Bend and establish what that translates in “affordable rent”. Do not use the federal guidelines for affordable as it is a slippery slope when it comes to federal dollars and housing. Prioritize essential workers, teachers, emergency workers, heath care, sanitation, parks, etc.
The city ended up using Airbnb, craigslist, and other online sources to find violators and took them to court. That effort was too little and too late as housing prices had risen past what a normal working class person could afford and enrollment at the local school had dropped as families moved out as they could no longer afford to live in the area. Individuals were buying and selling homes with the understanding that they had built in income from STR’s. Older smaller homes were torn down and replaced with mega homes that in many cases were only occupied for maybe two or three weeks a year.
At the end of all this is the growth and money are not worth it. Sometimes less is a better path. Stop the tide of change before it’s too late.