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Four months after Curry County began regulating vacation rentals, a Gold Beach man convinced commissioners to discount his planning fees arguing that short-term rentals could be a great source for temporary housing if used in a “community-hearted way.”

Robert Workman, a RE/MAXX agent in the area, made the case that the single-family home on Doyle Point Road he and his wife own should be treated as a single unit rather than the fourplex the couple turned it into.

They argued that the four units are contained in one structure, though Workman said Wednesday that he added a bathroom and kitchen to each space.

“We’re not somebody that’s from out of state that has bought a place and turned it over to someone else to manage for them,” Workman told the Curry County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday. “We’re here and our true belief is to continue this improvement.”

Commissioners unanimously agreed to discount the Workmans’ short-term rental planning fee from $8,000 — or $2,000 per unit — to a flat-fee of $2,000. They also agreed to reduce a parking variance fee from $1,450 to $500.

Workman said his vacation rental has a parking stall for each unit and a couple of extras, but they don’t have an extra space for each unit because “that would almost be ridiculous.”

“We have had, I want to say, 700-800 people stay at our place,” he said, adding that he and his wife have been operating the Doyle Point building as a vacation rental for about two years. “In that time we’ve had four or five people say hey, we’re bringing extra cars or we need a place to park an extra car and we let them know where it is. Those are the biggest reasons why we’re asking for a little bit of a modification.”

When he and his wife purchased the building, the Workmans modified it by removing two additions. He said it was originally listed at 2,400 square feet, but after removing the add-ons to the original structure, he estimated the size to be about 2,100 to 2,200 square feet.

Dividing the home into four units gave the Workmans flexibility. Since they began operating it as a rental, they have housed traveling medical workers and missionaries, a neighbor who needed a temporary source of power during an outage and those who needed a place to stay while attending a funeral or a family reunion.

Workman mentioned Emergency Services Manager Monica Ward, who was looking for temporary housing for postal workers and others who couldn’t get home because of the Arizona Slide that shut down U.S. 101 last month.

“We responded as quick as we could to her to try to make our place available,” he said. “STRs… are thought of as a negativity, and I’m here to tell you that our business plan was to help bring people here as they transition into homes of their own and I think we’re able to do that.”

It was because of what she called Workman’s commitment to the community that Curry County Planning Director Becky Crockett recommended commissioners discount his planning fees. She said if parking did become a problem, Workman told her he would be willing to purchase property next door to make sure he could expand the parking spaces if necessary.

“This is an unusual case,” she said. “Most of our short-term rental applications — in fact, I would say 95 percent of them that we’ve received so far — are from people that are out of town, so this is a different situation.”

In August, shortly after the Board of Commissioners approved short-term housing regulations, Crockett told the Wild Rivers Outpost that there are more than 400 vacation rentals in the unincorporated areas of the county.

During the Board’s discussion Wednesday, Court Boice said if the county received more short-term rental permit applications from locals, his colleagues might want to consider them on a case-by-case basis. Boice said he felt $8,000 was a tremendous fee for Workman’s rental.

However, Crockett said she didn’t anticipate many locals arguing for a discounted fee because they divided a single-family home into multiple units and intended to set them up as vacation rentals.

Most owners of vacation rentals aren’t local, she repeated.
Boice’s colleague, Vice Chair Brad Alcorn said he was worried about protecting the county being sued.

“I wonder about other folks that own short-term rentals that are paying fees and how they might feel about adjusting one party’s fees against their own,” Alcorn said. “I know the legal standard in that, I believe, is a compelling interest, and so my question would be for Counsel, have we met that threshold?”

County Counsel Ted Fitzgerald said that while Workman’s argument that dividing the home into four units for it to work effectively and efficiently may be a compelling interest, he didn’t think there was an argument for giving special consideration to locals.

“I think that even bringing that up begs litigation because it’s unequal treatment,” Fitzgerald said. “I think the strongest argument you can make would be: This thing’s been in business since prior to the new regulations requiring these fees an dit’s an ongoing part of their business.”

Crockett pointed out that Workman’s building has also been used as a long-term rental, which, she said, was the most compelling reason to grant the discount in her opinion.

“The compelling reason is the tie to the community and the opportunity and the willingness of the particular applicant to look at the long-term rental needs of people that are coming into the community trying to work,” she said.

Fitzgerald, pointing out that the county is going through a housing crisis, said the compelling interest was the building's potential as a long-term rental.

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