Oceanside Village has simultaneously served as a vacation retreat, a retirement haven and a family-friendly beach town ever since it was founded in 1922.  A third of all residences in Oceanside Village (103 houses) are licensed as short-term rentals. Unlike some coastal communities, we've had a century to learn how to interact as neighbors when issues arise, bound by our mutual interest in preserving the quality of life that benefits us all.  

This was borne out in a community-wide STR Survey of residents and STR owners/ operators conducted by the Oceanside Neighborhood Association Short-Term Rental Committee in 2022.  While it reflected some predictable differences of opinion between STR owners and residents, it also revealed a consensus on some key issues:
 

• Both groups rated livability higher than marketability as community values.

• Both groups opposed banning STRs but supported capping their number

• Both groups agreed that STR-generated taxes should be invested in effective measures to respond to visitor misconduct - especially noise and unlawful parking

• Both groups generally agreed that the county's complaint response system was deficient or ineffective

                     (Click here for the entire 2022 Oceanside STR Survey)

The starkly divided county STR Advisory Committee that crafted the recent overhaul of Tillamook County's short-term rental ordinance reflected no such core consensus. The rules they formulated in a series of closely divided votes were designed as one-size-fits-all solutions for STR issues that are unique to each community. 

In contrast, an independent Oceanside Village could commission its own local council of STR owners and residents to jointly review and recommend adjustments to those rules to better fit our local setting. For example, the county's method for allocating parking spaces offer few solutions for the densely built Village with STRs and residents both reliant on right-of-way parking spaces. Similarly, the county's refusal to regulate daytime noise makes little sense for Oceanside Village, where loud party music outside one home is involuntarily shared by so many other houses in our natural amphitheater. These are just examples of what might be addressed. The key point is that incorporation would enable the Village to meaningfully address such issues locally, rather than continue to rely on Tillamook County for the staff time and resources to do so.

Finally, incorporation would enable Oceanside Village to reclaim the tax and fee revenue that our STRs now send to the county for spending elsewhere. Short-term rental owners currently have little or no influence in how such funds are spent by the County. In an incorporated Oceanside Village, however, local STR owners could play a significant role in helping to determine how the money they raise is actually reinvested in our community by the neighbors they elect.