The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners is considering a significant increase to fees for new and renewing short-term rentals in unincorporated areas of Lincoln County.
The current fees haven’t been raised since 2019. That means they haven’t kept up with rising expenses and no longer cover their own administrative costs, said Lincoln County spokesperson Kenneth Lipp.
“It's just because they hadn't been raised in four years and, you know, there's some concern that it's still not gonna quite be enough because there's a lot of indirect costs that don't get captured in those personnel estimates,” he said.
The proposed increases would more than double the licensing fee for new short term rentals from $350 to $750 and quadruple the fee for renewals from $125 to $500.
Jamie Michel is Community Outreach Advocate for Via Oregon, an organization representing vacation rental owners in Lincoln County. “The fact that it's a 300% increase all at once, at a time when everybody's struggling to recover economically post-COVID, seems a bit, you know, overbearing and unfair.”
This comes as part of an ongoing debate between vacation rental owners and the other residents of coastal communities in Lincoln County, many of whom are concerned about the impact rentals like AirBnBs have on noise levels, community cohesion and housing availability.
The Board of Commissioners will consider the proposal at its Wednesday meeting.
