Oregon’s land-use laws were designed, in part, to prevent the spread of what the late Gov. Tom McCall famously called, in a speech to the 1973 Legislature, “sagebrush subdivisions,” clusters of houses far from the services of the nearest city.

The phrase stuck, and Senate Bill 100, the underpinning law of subsequent land-use planning, was approved that year. Among other things, the law and the rules surrounding it seek to assure that destination resorts remain just that — resorts — and don’t become those dreaded sagebrush subdivisions.

Thus resort developers must assure there’s enough visitor lodging available to accommodate a healthy number of short-term guests. To that end, they can allow no more than 2½ residences for every overnight lodging unit on the property. One way to do that is to encourage development of timeshares and vacation cabins, owned by private individuals but available to be rented out most of the year through a rental agency or the resort itself.

Currently, if the destination resort is close to the city of Bend — and only Tetherow on Bend’s southwest side qualifies — individually owned units must be available for guests 45 weeks a year, a huge chunk of time that gives an owner seven weeks to enjoy his property.

That is likely to change, however, and it should. Monday, the Deschutes County Commission will hold a public hearing on a proposed change to the county code covering destination resorts. If approved, it would cut to 38 weeks the time a private overnight rental must be available to the public. That would give owners 14 weeks to enjoy their properties.

It also would bring the requirement for cityside resorts in line with the one for those farther from Bend, including Pronghorn and Caldera Springs. That, too, makes sense. There’s no logical reason we can find for the difference.

The current code effectively punishes overnight rental property owners for choosing to purchase at Tetherow rather than at something more distant from Bend. It’s a difference that should be eliminated.