Expensive and Arduous Permitting Process

[Jeffrey Lee]

So I'm in the process of buying a home in Newberg, OR (wine country) that I intend to turn into my first STR and I'm coming up against a really ridiculous permitting process. As part of the application, there needs to be an entire "narrative" about my intentions with the property, addressing dozens of regulations and other points of interest, site drawings, signs on the property, and even attending a public hearing about my proposal. If that weren't enough, the process is slow and will cost close to $2,000 in fees. I had been hoping to close on the house in mid July and race to get it up on the vacation rental sites ASAP to capture the tail end of the high season, but it looks like that's not going to happen. I was told to expect it to take into September at the earliest. This is definitely a bummer, but I'm pressing on. We're just going to need to be a bit more creative about the first couple of months so we don't bleed out too much money.

Anyways, is this type of cost/process an anomaly, or have others come across something similar? Any chance there's anyone else on here doing this in Newberg, OR who has experience/advice? One interesting thing is that I was originally looking at properties in nearby towns and had called into two other city halls to find out the process was simple and cheap, so I was really surprised to find that Newberg is so over the top.