Great outdoors vs. great indoors: Hood River’s housing crunch
With its picturesque views and numerous local attractions, Hood River, Oregon, has long been a destination for outdoor enthusiasts as well as couples seeking to get married within the beauty of its scenic landscape. While a boon to the city’s economy, increased tourism has yielded a growth in demand for STRs, which was inadvertently creating a housing shortage and frustrating community residents.
While the city government strove to address constituents’ concerns and accommodate visitors, limited resources and a time-consuming manual process hamstrung its efforts. City employees relied on residents to report disruptive party houses, and regulation was inconsistent. In addition, as STRs proliferated, available housing stock began to dwindle, pricing many long-term residents out of the area. Hood River officials began seeking a technology solution that would enable them to rein in the STR listings and prevent housing costs from skyrocketing, while continuing to accommodate tourists and STR operators and preserving the unique character of the city. In addition, they sought to improve neighborhood comfort and safety by establishing enforceable STR guidelines.
Automation Treats All STR Operators Equally
Hood River discovered that Host Compliance provided a solution to their community’s needs that was not only regulatory and technical in nature, but social as well. It equipped the city with a more impersonal means for addresses to be easily identified, when in the past it would be impractical to commit the necessary resources to find and notify non-compliant properties without an initial complaint being filed.
No More Flying Under the Radar
In a community where tension regarding STRs was on the rise, Host Compliance was able to put an end to the ingrained suspicion that arose by residents associating code enforcement violations as being the result of one another’s complaints.
“It makes it feel less personal and invasive…when they feel like it was just a computer that found them rather than some individual searching them out.”
Furthermore, the objective nature of Host Compliance may have eliminated any reluctance by residents to comply with regulations that were originally enacted to be a solution to the similar concerns they shared. In fact, Hood River says that their first series of warning letters saw resident complaints seemingly vanish overnight. No longer could residents believe they could take a chance by flying under the radar. In turn, Hood River saw a significant rise in taxes being paid by those seeking a STR license.
