BERK Consulting published a Chelan County Tourism Impact Assessment report in February of this year. This study was conducted for the Chelan County government and was led by a steering committee that included representatives from Chelan County, Visit Chelan County, the cities of Leavenworth and Chelan, the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce, Our Valley Our Future, and lodging establishments in Chelan County. Notably, no members of the general public were on this committee. The 135-page study document can be found here:
One section of the study focuses on Housing Impacts. As RC3 read through this section, it became apparent that the study was downplaying the potential impacts of short-term rentals (STRs) in areas such as Chelan and Leavenworth on housing affordability and availability. The study included statements such as “…short-term rentals have small impacts on county-wide housing prices…” and “…while short-term rentals do increase housing rents and housing prices, the impact is much smaller at the county or community level than other factors that are driving up housing costs…”
While these statements may well be true for areas within Chelan County that have relatively low densities of STRs, RC3 disagrees with these statements when applied to areas within the county with relatively high densities of STRs such as Chelan and Leavenworth. We were concerned that these generalizations in the study would be used to discredit the STR restrictions promulgated for unincorporated Chelan County in 2021 and be used as justification for not limiting STRs in Chelan (something that RC3 has recently proposed). Further, we felt that these statements in the study directly contradicted the information actually provided in the study.
In response to the study, RC3 prepared and submitted a letter to BERK Consulting pointing out our concerns and our reasoning behind those concerns.
To their credit, BERK took the time to consider our comments and replied that they would be making some changes to the study document in response (at the time of this writing, Chelan County has not yet provided a new copy of the study on its website). Among a number of other changes, BERK specifically indicated that it would be making the following changes to the study document text:
We removed the sentence: “Impacts may be more pronounced at the block level, particularly for homes with unique amenities such as views or water access that are attractive to both visitors and residents.” And replaced it with “Impacts on housing prices are found to be greater in areas with low levels of owner-occupied housing or where short-term rentals make up a substantial portion of the housing supply” (pg. 60).
We updated the recommendation on short-term rentals (pg. 67) from “While short-term rentals have a small impact on county-wide housing prices, they can reduce the housing available to long-term renters” to read “Short-term rentals can impact local housing prices and reduce the housing available to long-term renters.”
RC3 appreciates these changes acknowledging that STRs can adversely impact housing prices in certain areas of the county where STRs proliferate. We hope that this helps to clarify that available data suggest that STRs are in fact expected to negatively affect housing affordability and availability in areas of Chelan County such as Chelan and Leavenworth.