HomeMy WebLinkAboutPABA Testimony on Short Term Rentals MoratoriumTestimony of the Port Angeles Business Association
Before the Port Angeles City Council
Short-Term Rental Moratorium
June 6, 2023
Amenities.
The Port Angeles Business Association (PABA) urges you to not to proceed with the currently
proposed Municipal Ordinance to place a moratorium on future short -term rentals (STR).
In listening to the audio for the late agenda item at your May 2 nd meeting, and in carefully
reading the Staff memo re: this evening’s STR agenda item, we can find no data or current
market analysis that would underpin any policymaking effort aimed at STR within city
boundaries. All that exists at present is an untested hypothesis regarding STRs reducing
available homes for purchase or rent. Please wait for your consultant to provide information
to you on the following:
• Does the STR market materially reduce so-called “middle housing” stock? In other
words, is there a problem and what are its dimensions?
• Would regulation solve whatever housing problem that currently exists and on into the
future?
More fundamental to the City’s housing supply shortfall, our organization recommends that
you (perhaps in conjunction with the Association of Washington Cities) delve deeply into why -
in a housing market so devoid of new supply - can’t homebuilders or developers make a profit
on spec houses (single or multi-family) affordable by those at Fannie Mae’s Clallam County
Area Median Household Income (currently $79,600) or at the Census Bureau’s Clallam County
Median Household Income ($65,652)?
We urge you to consider the other side of the STR coin: our tourism economy. STRs, B&Bs,
Hotels, Motels, RV parks, etc., all add up to a certain capacity to accommodate guests. If
there weren’t the market for guest accommodations, STRs wouldn’t exist as they do today. To
summarize – please consider carefully the potentially negative effect of STR regulation on our
tourism and hospitality economy, particularly in light of how negatively it was affected during
the recent pandemic closures.
We believe that all efforts should be aimed at increasing private sector supplied housing stock
– priced to be profitable for builders and within the financial means of residents at the
AMHI/MHI. This is essential in solving the problem of affordability.