Short-term rental review deadline ticking for Chelan County

The county has granted 712 provisional permits as of Tuesday to existing short-term rentals and the new tier 1 short-term rentals, one of three categories of rentals based on the number of guests allowed and whether the property is owner occupied.

Among the short-term rentals granted a provisional permit, 491 have already received their permanent permit to operate as short-term rentals after the county’s short-term rental team took a deep look at the properties, checking that things like parking and building permits abide the county code.

Tier 1 rentals are owner occupied with a maximum capacity of eight guests. Tier 2 rentals are non-owner occupied and are allowed to have up to 12 guests. Tier 3 rentals can be either owner occupied or not and can exceed the guest limits for the other two tiers.

The county has decided to not review the several tier 2 and tier 3 short-term rental applications until after the June 30 deadline, said Jill FitzSimmons, Chelan County spokesperson.

Applications on new short-term rentals will be accepted until July 29 in the areas that still have room, FitzSimmons said.

Each unincorporated area and urban growth area has a 6% cap on the number of short-term rentals that can operate there, based on the percentage of total housing stock being used as short-term rentals.

The Manson urban growth area is the one exception where the cap is 9%.

The county’s new short-term rental code requires the share of short-term rentals in each unincorporated zip code and urban growth areas to be determined each year, to show where new short-term rentals can pop up.

Find the available areas that have reached the cap here: wwrld.us/strspace.

A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed the number of provisional and permanent permits granted to only tier 1 short-term rentals.