Sandpoint to form vacation rental advisory board

SANDPOINT — After discussing the problem of vacation rental tax dodgers for several months, city officials are turning to the community for input.

At an Administrative Committee meeting Thursday night, Carrie Logan proposed forming an advisory committee consisting of residents with a stake in Sandpoint vacation home rentals, a housing arrangement lasting fewer than 30 days. The proposed would include city officials and staff like Fire Chief Robert Tyler along with citizens that will help identify the locally-preferred means of addressing the issue.

“The purpose is to come up with a plan to get people who aren’t currently paying to actually pay,” Councilwoman Carrie Logan, a newly-instated committee member, said.

Logan originally introduced the problem to the Administrative Committee in September before she was actually a member.

A resident who regularly paid the necessary resort city tax on her vacation mentioned to Logan that many individuals in the city weren’t as civically responsible. Although she was happy to meet the city requirements for her business arrangement, she resented the fact that others were getting away without repercussions instead of registering their tourist rental homes as required under current city ordinance.

 Instead, as Tyler pointed out in an earlier meeting that covered the subject, many will list their vacation rentals on third-party websites like Craigslist to avoid city scrutiny. The behavior doesn’t only result in lost resort city tax revenue — it also makes city staff’s responsibility to examine vacation rentals for safety impossible.

In past City Council meetings, members discussed abandoning the vacation rental sections of City Code altogether.

However, they determined to defer the matter back to the Administration Committee for further consideration in the new year.

Committee member and councilman Justin Schuck said he didn’t like the fact that law-abiding residents were being punished for their honesty. If an enforcement mechanism couldn’t be developed, he preferred to do away with vacation rentals altogether.

“My position hasn’t changed,” he said. “If we’re not going to enforce it, I don’t want to have it.”