An independent Oceanside Village presents an opportunity to fix and maintain VIllage roads using local tourist lodging taxes (TLT) and state of Oregon "small city" grants.
Oceanside Village's short term rentals collect $500,000 a year in lodging taxes ("TLT") from the thousands of visitors who drive on Village roads. Of this, $150,000 a year is dedicated to Tillamook County's Public Works Department for road maintenance and repair.
Between 2011 and 2025, the Public Works devoted an average of roughly $19,000 a year for all expenses related to Oceanside Village's local roads.
Incorporation would enable Oceanside Village to retain 90% of locally generated TLT ($450,000 a year) and devote up to $150,000 of that to local needs, including roads. It would also render the Village eligible to receive $17,000 a year for its roads from State of Oregon gas tax allocations and up to $250,000 in occasional road grants from the State of Oregon Small City Allotment Program.
While our revenue estimates are based on hard data from the county, the elected Village Council will be required to hold public hearings after the incorporation election before determining the actual spending schedule for road improvements. In the meantime, we surveyed Oceanside Village road conditions and the costs of paving them to compile a hypothetical Road Plan that provides a rough illustration the scope and likely time frame for the project.
​ ROAD PLAN
We walked every Village road in a survey to measure surface area and rank their condition. We then applied formulas provided by Tillamook County Public Works to calculate the paving costs for each of them. Here’s what we found.
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Which roads?
There are roughly four miles of local roads within the proposed Oceanside Village boundary. They range in length from 74 feet (Ocean Avenue) to just under a mile (Maxwell Mountain Road). The Village would also assume responsibility for “local access” roads (such as Alder, Birch and Oceanside Lane) that the county does not maintain at all. Click below to view a map.
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Incorporation would not automatically transfer responsibility for these roads to Oceanside Village. (Under state law - ORS 373.270 - county roads remain the county's responsibility until the new city consents to a transfer of ownership.) Instead, the elected Village Council would negotiate with the county over time to gradually assume responsibility for individual roads as it accumulates sufficient funds to repair and pave them. Oceanside Village would not assume responsibility for Cape Meares Loop Road (a county highway) or Highway 131 (a state highway).
At what cost?
We used our survey data to calculate the surface area of each road, then used a formula provided by Tillamook County Works to calculate the approximate paving cost for each road and intersection. Click below for a chart that lists each road’s surface area, relative condition and estimated paving cost.
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​​​​​​​​Who would pay?
Incorporation would render Oceanside Village eligible to access a variety of revenue sources to pave its roads and fund other services.
The primary source would be operator's fees and lodging taxes (TLT) paid by visitors to
106 Village short-term rentals and hotels. Those STRs now collect and forward over $500,000 a year in TLT to the county for allocation countywide. Incorporation would enable Oceanside Village to retain 90% of these proceeds for investment locally, of which up to $150,000 would be available for roads and other city services. (Click here.)
A second, more intermittent source would be grants of up to $250,000 offered by the Oregon Department of Transportation Small City Allotment Program (click here). Finally, as an incorporated city, Oceanside Village would be eligible for $17,000 in annual state gas tax allocations.
Together, we project that these sources alone would be sufficient to complete a paving program for the entire Village within10 -15 years supplemented by only a minimal city tax. (Maintenance costs thereafter would be considerably lower than the paving costs.)
Should Villagers wish to accelerate the paving program, they will have the option to consider supplementing the road fund with a city property tax. (Incorporation would not automatically create a city property tax. That will be a decision for the elected Village Council and its citizens to consider together only after voters approve incorporation in an election.)
To provide a comparison with the paving timeline projected for the "minimal" city tax option, we outlined a hypothetical Road Program that assumes a "maximum" city property tax is approved by Villagers after incorporation.
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How would road costs fit within the overall Village budget?
The elected Village Council and Village residents will not formulate or vote on an actual budget until after incorporation actually passes at the ballot. Despite this, state law requires an incorporation petition to include an “Economic Feasibility Statement” (EFS) with a nonbinding, hypothetical budget for the proposed city's first three years. To cover the entire range of revenue options the new city might adopt, we have drafted an EFS with two, alternative budgets.
One is a "minimal" budget that assumes that Villagers choose to assess the minimum city property tax necessary to qualify for state revenue sharing funds. The other assumes the opposite - that Villagers decide to assess the maximum city property tax. In both versions (and the versions that would fall somewhere in between them), road repairs would constitute the single largest expenditure. Here is a link to the most recently updated draft of the EFS.