Property owners in Deschutes County will now be able to rent out their Recreational Vehicles as housing, as long as the dwellings meet certain criteria.

The Deschutes County Commission approved a new code allowing that use last week, hoping to add affordable housing options in rural areas amid a countywide housing and homelessness crisis.

The code was adopted May 7, about a year and a half after the county started looking at RVs as a way to boost housing supply.

“I’m excited that we’ve got to this point,” Commissioner Tony DeBone said. “There’s big picture here. There’s opportunity for folks — for anybody that will be able to utilize this as a long-term housing option.”

The Deschutes County Planning Commission initially recommended against allowing the vehicles as dwellings in 2023. Concerns over wildlife, rural character, cost and fire safety permeated discussions the following year.

“This has been sort of a long journey,” Tanya Salztman, senior planner with Deschutes County, told commissioners May 7.

The county reworked an initial proposal to make the rules around RV dwellings more restrictive and address some of the concerns. The RVs approved as living quarters through the county’s program will likely look much different than the negative image the public sometimes associates with people living in RVs.

Properties hosting RVs must be at least two acres and in a residential zone. The RV must be at least 10 feet away but no more than 100 feet away from the property’s primary dwelling, which must be occupied as the primary residence of the property owner, and no part of that residence can be rented out. The RV can’t be used as a short term rental, and must have a working toilet and sink, water and electric supply and sewage disposal. The RV must sit on a gravel or concrete parking pad, and maintain a 20-foot radius free of non-combustible ground cover free of vegetation to mitigate fire risk. The RVs must also have emergency access.

“Hopefully this will create slightly less of an impact on things like wildlife or vegetation or fire risk, that type of thing, rather than spreading them out across what might be a very large property,” Salztman said, referring to the requirements for spacing of RVs.

A 2023 bill passed by the Oregon legislature gave counties the option to allow RVs as rental dwellings. In 2021, the state passed a bill allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs on rural lands. Deschutes County adopted rules allowing ADUs in 2023.

Both types of units are a tool for local governments to sprinkle more housing into the mix. The city of Bend has taken a succession of actions in the last several years to encourage the production of ADUs, and may soon allow two of the units per property inside the city.

Deschutes County’s 2024 Rural Housing Profile identified RVs as an “emerging opportunity.” The same report states unincorporated Deschutes County is projected to grow by about 5,000 people by 2047, which will require about 2,000 new housing units, based on average household size.

According to Saltzman, nearly 8,000 properties will be eligible to host RV dwellings.

“I’d just like to say how glad I am that this opportunity to provide workforce and low-income housing opportunities in the rural county with the smallest amount of impacts to the landscape and environment and to neighboring properties as finally come ripe,” Chang said.

DeBone said its a good time to open up another housing option as the county grapples with the effects of homelessness, including increase camping on county lands because of the recent sweep of China Hat Road in the Deschutes National Forest south of Bend, where an estimated 100-200 people were forced from camps where many had lived for several years.

On private property, the county’s code enforcement department has 127 cases of RV occupancy violations active or pending, according to Kim Katchur, a spokesperson for the county. Of those, 32 have the potential to apply for a permit to become legal. Many won’t qualify because they are within an area of south Deschutes County that requires a minimum of five acres to host an RV or an ADU because of groundwater concerns.