This morning at the their regular 10:00 business meeting, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners approved a long-discussed text amendment to loosen the county's regulations regarding destination resorts.

Commissioners Dennis Luke and Mike Daly voted in favor, while Commissioner Tammy Baney voted against the measure. Baney's objection was over her concern with an element of the application that would allow private residences to be made available to renters for only 38 weeks a year instead of 45 weeks a year.

Luke and Baney wrangled for a short time over the standard, which has drawn the ire of the Planning Commission and many members of the general public. Baney motioned to strike the amendment from the application, but failed to receive a second.

Luke, still unable to find any reason why this change made any policy sense, was content to merely point out that no one knew whether 38 weeks would pose any problems, despite the fact that a number of worrisome scenarios have been discussed in testimony. "Nobody has produced scientific data," he pointed out. Baney - as I hoped she would - threw this back essentially saying that yes Dennis you're right, there is no good reason for making this change.

Unfettered, Luke and Daly quickly voted for approval and quickly moved on to the next topic.

What does this mean? The Commission has just passed (pending a second and final reading which is all but assured of producing the same result) that allows new resorts and approved resorts (via amendments to their master plans) to focus exclusively on providing private residences rather than overnight units. There really is no consolation prize here, no silver lining. All that remains is to see how many new applications these far more attractive rules will attract and how many approved resorts will reapply to tear down (or never construct) hotels and other overnight units, and put up more houses in their place.