5.10.020 Purpose and scope.
A. This ordinance provides reasonable and necessary regulations for the licensing of short-term rental of residential dwelling units in order to:
1. Ensure the safety, welfare and convenience of renters, owners and neighboring property owners throughout Hood River.
2. Balance the legitimate livability concerns with the rights of property owners to use their property as they choose.
3. Recognize the need to limit short-term rental options within the neighborhoods to ensure compatibility, while recognizing the benefits of short-term rentals in in providing recreation and employment opportunities, as well as transitional housing and business or hospital related short stays.
4. Help maintain the City’s needed housing supply for residential use.
5. Protect the character of the City’s neighborhoods by limiting the number and concentration of full-time short-term rentals in residential zones. In the adoption of these regulations, the City finds that the transient rental of dwelling units has the potential to be incompatible with surrounding residential uses. Therefore, special regulation of dwellings listed for transient occupancy is necessary to ensure that these uses will be compatible with surrounding residential uses and will not materially alter the neighborhoods in which they are located.
B. A short-term rental license is a permission to operate a short-term rental in accordance with this chapter. An operating license may be terminated or revoked if the standards of this chapter are not met or the dwelling is sold or otherwise transferred as defined in this chapter. This chapter provides an administrative framework for licensing the annual operation of a short-term rental.
C. The regulations of this code are not intended to permit any violation of the provisions of any other law or regulation.
D. Exemption of a use from the provisions of this chapter shall not exempt the use from other applicable provisions of this Code.