By Meredith M. Griffith

Sounder contributor

San Juan County has created a database of all vacation lodging being advertised in the county to ensure that all units are registered under a state business license, have a county transient lodging permit, and are paying the appropriate state and county sales and lodging taxes. The council is also examining how the proliferation of vacation rentals might be affecting the availability of long-term, affordable housing that supplies the county’s middle working class.

“It began as an issue of parity,”  said San Juan County Councilman Rick Hughes. “I personally support transient lodging as long as people are playing by the rules. Anyone who’s participating in short-term rentals needs to follow the law and be filing and paying lodging and sales taxes.”

Because short-term rental owners who have not been paying taxes have an unfair advantage over those who do comply, this April the county council passed Resolution 12-2015. It requires local visitors’ bureaus and chambers of commerce receiving funding from the county to collect the following information from their lodging members and transient rental listings: a tax parcel number; a transient lodging permit; and a valid state Unified Business Identifier (UBI#).

This data, along with online listings like Vrbo.com and Airbnb and county GPS data, is being used to complete a cross-referenced database of all transient rentals. Unlicensed lodgings will be notified.

As the council, county staff and related organizations gathered this data, ”it morphed into another question,” said Hughes. “Are affordable housing units being lost to short-term rentals?”

By law, rentals of less than 30 days require a UBI# and a transient rental permit; longer rental terms require no permits and no license. Anecdotal evidence suggests that local businesses are having a harder time lately finding and keeping good workers, and that long-term working tenants are losing out to the recent conversion of low-cost housing units into higher-profit vacation rentals.

County records show 608 in San Juan County. There is currently no limit on the number of transient rentals allowed in the county, but guest houses outside the urban growth area cannot be used for vacation rental.

The county council asked the Housing Bank Commission to report on whether an increase in vacation rentals is having an impact on affordable housing availability countywide.

“Information from employers and local business suggest that long-term year-round rentals are becoming increasingly hard to find,” stated the June 22 response. “The role that increase in short-term “vacation” rentals plays in this dilemma is not known at this time.”

The commission called the following three affordable housing needs “critical”: affordable home ownership opportunities; affordable long-term rentals; and affordable seasonal worker housing. The report added, “The issue is not limited to residents at or below 80 percent of Area Median Income to which state and Federal funds can be applied. In San Juan County, affordable housing issues affect those up to and beyond 120 percent of AMI.”

The commission recommended further study and suggested some possible strategic solutions: explore incentives for landowners to create long-term affordable rentals, such as density bonuses; add land to the UGA for permanent affordable housing; and identify additional funding opportunities like Community Development Block Grants to increase affordable housing stock.

“There have been a lot of suggestions about what might be done,” said county Affordable Housing Coordinator Melanie Rollins, “but at this point it is at the investigation stage.”