Page 76 - Rural Tourism Report Washington County

CHAPTER 4: RURAL TOURISM REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the state and County regulatory framework for rural tourism especially
in terms of land use, and to compare currently allowed and potential rural tourism uses and attractions identified
in the first two chapters of this report to current state and County regulations. A significant opportunity exists to

expand the suite of uses allowed within the County’s farm and forest resource lands, should the County desire,
by selectively incorporating related recent state legislation into Washington County’s Community Development
Code (CDC) as well as examining possible changes to existing allowances to further support rural tourism.

Introduction Organization
Following the work done in Chapter 3, The Rural For clarity of presentation, this chapter is organized
Tourism Sector, this chapter explores the regulatory in the following manner:
framework within which state provisions related to • State and regional regulatory context,

rural tourism have been, or could be, implemented at including a discussion of the statewide
the County level. Tasks included:
planning goals as they regulate farm and
• Assessing whether and how the range of forest activities, and Metro’s management of
existing and desired rural tourism activities the Regional Urban Growth Boundary.
identified through interviews/focus groups in
Chapter 3 are addressed by state and County • State regulatory/implementation framework,
regulations, identifying County standards specifically covering allowed uses in the rural
that appear to prevent or complicate such resource districts as presented in ORS 215.
activities, and considering how those County • Summary of rural tourism related state

standards might be amended to remove statutes, including SB 960 and 841-B and
unnecessary obstacles while maintaining additional bills adopted in the recently-
compliance with state law. completed session of the Oregon Legislature.
• Reviewing recent legislation related to • Washington County land use regulations,
agriculture, rural tourism, and rural land including an expanded analysis of the County

use, including, but not limited to, Senate Community Development Code’s (CDC) nine
Bills (SB) 841 and 960, assessing how the rural land use districts and the rural tourism-
legislation might be used to amend County related uses already allowed in them.
code standards to better accommodate rural • Analysis, including preliminary observations
tourism activities identified in Chapter 3, of the suitability of each land use district
and how the legislation may pose particular
barriers to allowing such activities. to accommodate rural tourism and related
commercial uses based on existing CDC
• Identifying potential amendments to state standards, and potential modification of the
law that might realistically be sought to CDC to further incorporate rural tourism and

allow certain existing or desired activities, related commercial uses should the County
currently not allowed, that appear to be decide to move in this direction.
favored/trending per research and interviews
conducted in prior tasks. • Recommendations for future state regulation.

72 WASHINGTON COUNTY RURAL TOURISM STUDY