I am writing to show my support for a recent movement to re-evaluate the permitting process for vacation rentals in the city of Bend. I am aware that some close-in Bend neighborhoods are now at 33 percent vacation rental occupation and that the number is increasing at record speeds. I am totally against the city issuing any more permits until this issue is seriously evaluated.

When the codes are rewritten, I think vacation rental owners should have to reapply each year, and that many permits should be denied so that we can get our numbers back in line with other touristed cities, such as Ashland and Cannon Beach. Also because the majority of vacation rentals are owned by people who don’t even live here, I think having Bend as your primary residence should be a stipulation of a permit.

I am a long-term west-side Bend renter and have lived here for eight years. In that time I have made three-quarters of my income off the tourism industry. I worked for Visit Bend for a year and a half. I studied tourism marketing at OSU-Cascades, and I’m now employed as the marketing director at Tumalo Creek Kayak & Canoe. I am not against tourism and see it as a vital part of Bend’s economy.

What I am against is turning Bend into Sunriver. That town was built primarily as a transient community, while one of the best qualities of Bend is the sense of a close-knit, permanent community of locally conscious citizens who are lucky enough to call this place home, but who also have made a lot of financial sacrifices to live in a place where many only visit. We make less money because we live here. It is well-documented by EDCO that the same jobs in Portland and California make a third or double more than an similar job in Bend.

I have directly felt the effects of this transition from residential to vacation rental housing on Bend’s west side. Before moving to where I now live, I was looking for a full year for a single bedroom apartment or a small house that I could afford. Apartments and homes were taken within hours of being posted. The rental market has never been this tight in Bend, and it is because long-term rentals are being replaced by transient rentals.

Where I live now is a perfect example. My landlord gets $200 a night when he rents it as a vacation rental. Even if it was full for two weeks a month, he’d make nearly three times what I pay monthly. With that kind of economics at play, notice (to end my tenancy) could come any day.

As one of my final projects when doing some postbaccalaureate work with Kreg Lindberg at OSU-Cascades, I studied unsustainable growth patterns that occurred in Aspen, Telluride and Moab when those cities got on the national radar as outdoor meccas. The situation got out of control, and city governments didn’t react fast enough, and most “locals” who actually worked in the towns themselves were forced to move to neighboring towns. Some cities went so far as to build government-subsidized housing within the city limits to cut down on commutes and traffic.

Out-of-control growth patterns in Bend have gotten both the city and the people who live here in a lot of trouble in the past. Let’s collectively put on the brakes for vacation rental permits and follow in the footsteps of other cities around the state that recognize the value of residential neighborhoods.

— Laurel Brauns lives in Bend.