Real Estate Show Interview with Medford Community Development 

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Real Estate Show with City of Medford Development Services

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Hey, there Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. So excited to have you join us again today. I'm Alice Lema I'm a local real estate broker with John L. Scott. And today we're gonna talk to City of Medford Development Services because we're gonna talk about starting your own business or taking your own business to the next level.

And it's very exciting episode and we've got Carol Wedman, the development services manager of City of Medford, and also Shannon Thorpe, the business license technician in City of Medford. And we're gonna talk about if you have a company going, maybe you're working outta your house, maybe you wanna start something and work outta your house.

You can also grow into the commercial real estate business aspect. We're gonna talk about the whole thing. We're gonna talk about food trucks. We're gonna talk about what it's like to work outta your home. It's gonna be great. Carol Wedman and Shannon Thorpe from the Development services department, city of Medford. We're gonna talk about businesses at home and [00:01:00] in the commercial sector.

Before we do that, we have some 2022 numbers. Finally, the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors, who is also a sponsor of our show, thank you so much. But they put out the most amazing reports, and now we have the 2022. Wanna just run some of these numbers by you.

Josephine County started 2022 in January with a little over two months of inventory. Finished in December with over four months of inventory. It's up over 80%. It's taking 80% longer in Josephine County to sell residential property. However, the prices are up 5% in Josephine County. I know it's hard to believe, but right now a residential property, average price in Josephine County, $445,000 for 2022. Can you believe it?

Let's do jackson County. Jackson County started 2022 with [00:02:00] 1.5 months of inventory. That's just a month and a half of inventory we started 2022. We finished over four months average. Days on market, that's up a hundred, almost 170% takes longer to sell your house. The prices are also up 5% in Jackson County. The average residential price is now a whopping $489,000 as of 2022. So let's take a quick break from our sponsors. We're brought to you by John L. Scott, Ashland and Medford, the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors and Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage. Thank you so much. We appreciate you every single year.

We're gonna take a quick break and then jump into our interview, talking about business licenses, starting businesses, growing businesses, city of Medford, Carol Wegman and Shannon Thorpe here. Don't touch that dial, we'll be right.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show everybody. So glad you could join us today. I'm [00:03:00] Alice Lema your host. I'm a broker at John L. Scott here in beautiful Southern Oregon, and today we're talking to some of my favorite people from Medford Development Services. We've got Shannon Thorpe, a business license technician, and Carol Wedman, development Services Manager. Welcome ladies.

 So your department, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit to a little bit about yourself and what your department does and then we've got lots of questions.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. Well, I'm in our area business license or business license desk. We we take an applications for anybody that's doing business in the city limits of med.

So even if you're outside the city, you need to come in and get a business license. So even if it's temporary contractor or anything like that, you need to come in and get a license. So we have folks that have a brick and mortar, you know, building license here, you know, you need to get a business license. Those are short term lease stay. So that's a huge, [00:04:00] that's a huge area that folks don't think about it, right. Most folks, it's easy to explain it like a hair salon, barbershop, down to tattoo artists that just lease a chair. They have a spot. Manicures mental health.

You know, we have counselors that do have lease stations. They rent, you know, just a small 150 square foot little room. You know, it might be temporary workplace. We have businesses that, you know, do coworking, we just go in and use the office space. So you can, your appoint there because you really, you know, do the business from your home.

But you need to a spots to be, do that as well. Licensed those and liquor license endorsements through the all cc, they'll come in with their application and we have the fire department review that. Make that everything is as good to good, you know, for safety. And then we make sure that they have a commercial business license for that.

Carol Wedman: So there's a lot of things that we do folks don't know about us, you know, they kind of think of us an afterthought and they really should be getting your license before they open. Yeah. ,

Alice Lema: you know, it's really, we're gonna talk about that .

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah, you bet. You bet. So [00:05:00] that's kind of what, that's kind of what you know, we do with ours

Alice Lema: and everything.

Yeah. That's a really broad amount of area that you guys cover. And Carol what does Development Services manager

Carol Wedman: do? So I oversee the permit intake and business license programs. Shannon is our senior licensing person. So she's really key in helping us to review code and see that it's relative.

And you know, like when marijuana came in, there was a lot to do, a lot in code, a lot of regulation. So I kind of facilitate some of that stuff. I do the budget for the building safety department, so I have my feet in both camps, the building side of the house and the licensing. I, I do, as I said, I do budget and prepare some, some items for counsel for the director.

And then really I fill alot of gaps. So I've, I've helped implement software here and, you know, problem solving. Filler is really the appropriate of what I do here. And then licensing does tie in pretty closely to the building department because many of these business types go through full [00:06:00] reviews of the fire department, engineering, planning, and buildings.

And I think Shannon might have touched on change of use that will require permit a lot of the times permits, and plan review and, you know, and inspections before they can even open. So yeah.

Alice Lema: What is, what does a change of use mean?

Shannon Thorpe: So you have like a bookstore going to a restaurant. It's amazing. Yeah. It could be anything a store that was a salon have sinks and we have ventilation, all that stuff that's, that's part of the process. It's ready to, you know, and it's gonna go through the review process. It's nothing for commercial business license, and we do a full review for commercial .

Alice Lema: So if somebody wanted to do [00:07:00] something like in a strip mall, then definitely the fire department traffic, all those people have to weigh in on their permit. Is that correct? . So, but what if you wanna do something in your house? Like some hair people do hair in their house. Is that okay? Mm-hmm. , are you supposed to do that?

Shannon Thorpe: It, it is okay. The state of Oregon for cosmetology, they do, they do allow that. The thing with home-based businesses, We have an agreement, a home-based agreement, and there are rules and guidelines about running a business from your home.

So you need to review that as a home-based business owner and part of likely having a salon hair, a hair person, nails, whatever it is. how many trips people are coming and going to the house because you know, you always have to remember that's residential. And you wanna keep your neighbors happy.

Oh, totally. Yeah. It's nothing like having an upset neighbor giving us a call, but that's part of the thing. So it happens. So there's, there's, there's like a, a little schedule of little count of trips coming and going from a home. So, and you [00:08:00] also take a look at how many people live in your home that, you know, teenagers are coming and going.

So you just don't wanna. It's really to keep the neighborhood happy too, you know, to make sure that you're not having cars leaving and going and coming all day long.

Alice Lema: So is there a standard or a limit? What? What are the limit?

Shannon Thorpe: It's like, it's on an average, average of 10 a day. So it's really coming, coming to the house and leaving. And that would be two trips. So you really would think of it just maybe as five customers in a day on an average.

Alice Lema: Actually, that's pretty high.

Shannon Thorpe: That would that, that's, that's the agreement.

Carol Wedman: Doesn't that include, does it include owner?

Shannon Thorpe: That's what I'm saying as well. Yeah. So if you have a teenager that's going to, to high school and coming back and driving,

Alice Lema: then they can't come home.

Shannon Thorpe: That's, that's not it. Yeah. That doesn't, and so it's, it's just being aware, you know, it's just it's not a commercial business license. You know, you have a parking lot and your customers are coming, going. No one cares. No one cares how many people going in out. But when you're in your home and they're parking in your driveway or right in front of your home, you know, your neighbors. You know, you're just keeping things [00:09:00] nice and friendly, you know, not a lot of traffic.

Carol Wedman: They also can't store like work vehicles out in front. They have to be behind a gate. There's, there's a lot of criteria in there, and that, you know, also allows enforcement, because they've agreed to this, they're aware of.

So if a neighbor does complain, code enforcement can go out and say, Hey, you can't do this, or your license will be revoked. So, and, but we are really good at working with people. Mm-hmm. and people wanna do the right thing. So yeah.

Alice Lema: You guys are, it's just amazing, you know, you guys answer the phone, you know what you're talking about. You're nice as pie and you help move us along to the next step. And that's why I'm so glad to have you on the air today. We're talking to Shannon Thorpe, city of Medford business license technician and Carol Wedman, development services managers, city of Medford. And we're talking about businesses, home businesses, starting businesses some code enforcement, and also touching on foot traffic in a residential area. What about the people [00:10:00] that are doing childcare cuz they have lots of foot traffic.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah, there's There's rules and, and majority of the folks that have a larger a larger daycare faculty, they're gonna be a commercial. So that goes through they're gonna have a commercial address. More of a commercial address.

Right. But we do have folks that do childcare and so they have to limit the trips as well. It's, it's the same, it's the same thing. You know, for any home license, but there's a lot of

Alice Lema: ok. Five, five trip. Is that right?

Shannon Thorpe: Essentially,

Alice Lema: right? Yeah. So that would be one parent, two times, two parents, two times.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. And there's different rules of how many children can be in a home. This is something that we're, we are working in a process and we can certainly, you know, answer some questions after. But there's a huge process that we're building right now with some new changes last year. So we're gonna be building those processes,

Alice Lema: those that new changes in code enforcement or, yeah, for home,

Shannon Thorpe: based. Per home-based childcare, like number of children.

Yeah. Certain. It used to be a, I think a higher threshold, lower thresholds trigger different reviews.

Carol Wedman: Yes. [00:11:00] Different type of business. You know, that all comes down from the state. That's not something we, and, and, you know, enforcement's limited, a lot of it is honor system. Again, some of these agreements just allow us to enforce it if there's complaint. We're complaint driven, essentially. We don't have regular visits or things like that. We're not the strong iron arm of the law. We're just, even the number of trips, that's just more, you had to pick a number, right? So people are reasonable, you know, nobody's counting your trips.

It's just don't have kind of your employees coming and going all day long. So we're not the heavy enforcers, it's just more to set reasonable guidelines. So to keep people happy and safe, basically.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. And Carol brought up, you know, like having your employees at the house, there's really a home-based business, you know, it is, it really, they call it assembly of employees. Their employees are not allowed to come to your residence, your house, park, all their cars, jump in the work vehicles and leave. They need to meet at the work site, but it's not clogging up the streets and you know, out front of [00:12:00] other people.

Alice Lema: Oh, I did not know that.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah, so it's called Assembly of Employees and it's a hard one to understand, but just, we just go back to the root of it, that folks need to be aware that, you know, this is a home-based business. It's not, again, it's not commercial. So you're trying to be kind, being good with your neighbors.

Alice Lema: Well, and, and some of these home-based businesses once they get going, they're positioned to move out of the neighborhood and get you know, their own office space or their own yard, their own commercial yard.

Shannon Thorpe: It, it happens frequently. It really doesn't. So we, and we'll be able to help them transition, moving that license and keeping all that good history, you know, for their credit, for everything. It's just nice to have that good consistency and we can move that home-based license right. Over a commercial, go through the reviews.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's nice.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah, so we keep all this notes in there so, you know, anybody's asking for any, you know, longevity notes and it helps 'em with loans, things like that. So those little things help.

Alice Lema: Wow. That's incredible. So during the covid you know, a lot of people [00:13:00] retrained, they changed careers. So I'm just wondering if we saw an uptick in home and not home and just business in general in the last couple of years.

Carol Wedman: We stay pretty steady, right around 6,000 business licenses. And I, I jotted down some stats. That includes about 253 liquor. So, so we are using these.

Alice Lema: There are not that many liquor stores in Medford. There's not that many liquor stores in Medford.

Carol Wedman: Well, that would be people serving liquor too, right? Endorsements and all. So you know, ever since I've been here, I think we've been right around the low six thousands. I think we peaked at 7,000, like six, five or six years ago.

But ever since, even during Covid, Alice, we, the city offered two rounds of business grants. I think we gave out 250 grand and they were $1,500, around $1,500 each. To try to keep people, you know, we didn't know it was gonna go on for two years right. But just to try to mitigate some [00:14:00] of the loss that people were feeling through that time.

So we're not just an enforcement agency. We really do try to stimulate business, support business. We, we recently enacted a couple new programs our building, safety director, you know, Sam, he's starting a program called Destination Downtown. It hasn't really launched. But we're gonna send letters out to all the businesses in and around the downtown, just letting 'em know, Hey, if you have a vacant or underutilized building, come on in. Let's talk about what you might be able to do with that building.

Alice Lema: Wow, that's great.

Carol Wedman: Just to try to, to help people to build our city. Anyway, so I'm, I'm also gonna sit on a, or walk on a reimagined tour with downtown Medford and Jenkins, she's the interim director of downtown Medford Association, is putting together a group of developers, business owners to walk around the city and point at businesses and say, boy, an ice cream shop would be great here. Like, imagine [00:15:00] what your downtown could be.

Alice Lema: That's gonna be awesome. We've gotta take a quick break from our sponsors real quick. We're talking to City of Medford, Shannon Thorpe and Carol Wedman, will be right.

Hi, Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. I'm Alice Lema, I'm a real estate broker here with John L. Scott in Southern Oregon. And we're talking to Shannon Thorpe and Carol Wedman. They're with the City of Medford, development services department. Shannon's a business license technician and Carol is a development service manager and we are talking about business licenses, real estate. We're talking about commercial, and we're gonna touch on some of the small business activity that's going on around our area.

Thanks for being on the show again, ladies. So during the break we were talking a little bit more about commercial, what it takes to have a commercial business and some of the review processes. Can you weigh in on that, Shannon?

Shannon Thorpe: Sure. So when you're [00:16:00] looking, when you have a brick and mortar business, so you're actually in a retail spot, in a commercial, you know, a building in a suite, things like that, you know, before you actually open and start your business, you know, it's good to check in with our planning department here at the city.

You know, talk about zoning to make sure that your type of business is okay. It's gotta, it's in the right zone for what you wanna do. Good to check in with your building department for any. You know, possible a change of use. We talked about that a little bit earlier. But also if there's any permitting that might need to be done.

You know, if we're building permits, you know, changing a wall, adding a sink, electrical, anything like that. And so when you apply here for your commercial business license, it's gonna go through a review and the first stop is planning. So if they say, no, it's not gonna go anywhere, it's, that's it. We can't go any further. So it's gonna go building, planning, engineering, fire department.

Alice Lema: Oh, so it has an order.

Shannon Thorpe: It actually has an order. And we, when we, we changed the system several years ago, it always had a, a bit of an order, but we now, we have a stop gap at certain departments. So if we really, if [00:17:00] they're gonna put it on hold, they're gonna get things answered, you can get permits done, things like that, that really, it's always gonna start with planning.

So always check in and make sure that what you're doing is approved in that, in that section of the city, in that little zone. So there's that. It goes through it's about maybe 3, 5, 7 days, depending, you know, on how things,

Alice Lema: which I think is very quick, don't you?

Shannon Thorpe: Yes. And sometimes it's even faster than that. It just depends cuz if you can do all your due govan before you bring us your app and you can even work with us, you know, talk to us about it. So me, I don't really understand what this means, like talking to planning or whatever, but we have some great people that really work with you on things and explain things really well.

Building apartment is, is amazing. And everybody work will work with you. I keep saying that, but it's, we are just such a good team here that we'll walk you through the process, we'll help you out and get it going and it really will fly right. So it's really good. It's all safety, it's all uh, anything permitted.

Alice Lema: There's a reason behind all of this, you guys. I, it's, it's not fun to be a cheat. And then if you, if you get caught, then you might have got caught [00:18:00] cuz somebody got hurt. It's, it's like all these rules and processes are for the citizen's best interest and for the community. So that's why it's so important to get the word out what the rules are and it can also help you move your business, like we were talking about before, from, you know, maybe you have your, your beauty parlor in your house and now you're gonna expand. And you guys are just so helpful in getting all that done.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah, we work, we try, we try really hard to, to work with folks. We're not the bad guys here. We're really not. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a good thing and it really feels good. It's, it's a good accomplishment and it's a nice thing to hang your, you know, hang your business license on your wall, new all your business.

Alice Lema: Oh. And it's so exciting. Yeah. Good. And so after the shutdown a lot of people did wanna start their own businesses. And one of the really popular things we saw more than ever were, were the food trucks. So how does that work?

Shannon Thorpe: That took off? That is same thing. It's gonna go through a commercial review process. There is a little bit more [00:19:00] to it. It, i, I know I, I joke about this, but these days the marijuana process to get your marijuana business license here is pretty smooth. Getting a food truck, it's a little bit more. We have no, but you know, you need, we wanna make sure that you have permission to park there.

We wanna make sure that your truck is not too big. You know, it's a planning, a planning code right there. It's not too long, not too large. You know, we have to make sure you have your Jackson County Health inspection, then that's done. Environmental. Environmental.

Alice Lema: What's an, what's an environmental on a food truck?

Shannon Thorpe: On the food. And make sure storage, everything there is in the truck is gonna be safe, so they have to go, there's, there's a lot of processes. So once you have all these little, all the pieces and we lay it out in our applications, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, get all that stuff and we look at it and we put it through review, and then it's, it's ready to go. We also have, you know, we have to ask for a site plan. You know, you're looking at, so where, where are you gonna park that truck? And, you know, planning looks at that to make sure that it's safe, you know, for the, the traffic coming in and out, driving in and outta that parking lot wherever you're at. There's so many pieces to it, so, [00:20:00] but boy, it, it really took off That was just, people couldn't go into a restaurant. So like, well, I'm getting a truck. I'm gonna park it outside, you know?

Alice Lema: Yeah. And were they, were they fairly successful?

Carol Wedman: We have, I think we have, last time I looked, we had 67 food trucks licensed in Medford 67.

Shannon Thorpe: Jumped quite a bit. I I, I always wanna go back and look, but I, I just haven't taken the time to do it, but it really took off and they're, and most of 'em have stayed. It's been wonderful.

Carol Wedman: We do have. I was just, I was gonna say we do have six designated city spots that if you apply and it's first come, first serve around the downtown. Like where victory dogs used to be. That's one, like the two ends of the library across the street though. I think there's one in, in front of City Hall,

Shannon Thorpe: right by the, by the fountain over here. So then we have, you know, by RCC all the way down. So those are city approved. Those are like small cart. Think of like a hotdog or like a small bento, you know, cart. That would,

Alice Lema: so, so how, what does that mean? City approved? First come first serve? What does that mean exactly?

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. Well, yeah, it's [00:21:00] so those are city approved corners.

Carol Wedman: They've designated the space. They're already predetermined. They don't have to send as long as their little cart can be pushed and not driven in. Yep. They just apply and basically you get it. But I, it's their, I can't remember what we designated so many months and then the next. Right. So

Alice Lema: it's Oh, I see. Yeah. You don't have to fight it every morning at Yeah. No. Dark 30 to get your corner corner.

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. You're approved for that corner or wherever you're, you know, for those approved sites. And then, you know, once or twice a year, then, you know, they take a look at it. Do you still wanna keep that one or are we gonna open up for somebody else? Do you wanna move to a different spot? So things like that. Yeah. Okay.

Carol Wedman: Most of 'em are on private property right now? Yes. Which is a little different. Interesting fact though. The food carts are fine, but you see little vegetable stands on the corner over by south, south Medford, and they need a license too. You can't just plop down. Mm-hmm. . So, well,

Alice Lema: I just assume they had a license. I'm saying they don't,

Shannon Thorpe: They do need one, but most people don't know that. We [00:22:00] get complaints and we'll drive out and the person doesn't know they need a license. Yeah. Or, or

they're gone. And another let them, we catch up and it's really mo most of the, what would be reviewed there is really like through engineering public works, you know, through right a way. Traffic and for

paths and yeah. So it's safety. Safety and it's really important. But you see them just with little umbrella, it's like, oh, that's awesome, that fresh fruit. But it's like, it's not safe for people to pull over inside a road and hand money out the window and take a, you know, tray of, you know, box of oranges or whatever. So that's what we exactly. Yeah, it's just not safe.

Carol Wedman: Essentially, if you're making money in the city of Medford, you should have a City of Medford business license.

Alice Lema: See, that's easy to remember. .

Carol Wedman: Yeah. Hard to get that point across. But yeah,

Shannon Thorpe: even, even our nonprofits and exempts, you know, folks that are, are exempt, you know from, they'll be exempt from the fee, but they still need to apply. We need to make sure that everything's safe. Yeah. Yeah.

Alice Lema: So For going back to the food truck. Is that, are you gonna open up more predetermined, designated, like [00:23:00] you've got six now? Is that something the City of Medford is, is open to adding, adding a few more locations?

Shannon Thorpe: I haven't heard, I haven't heard anything.

Carol Wedman: There's been no conversation about it. We did talk about it with engineering because of the fruit stands and stuff. So if fruit stands really became prevalent, I think we would talk about. Okay. Where can these businesses locate? Because you know, they, they're often over by North Medford High on the corner.

There's no parking. People just pull over and it almost causes accidents. And so we did talk about, we had one guy that sparked that whole thing. You know, Hey, we got license, but he's somewhere. Do we license it? We had to change our code to kind of accommodate it. We only have had him that we know of.

Shannon Thorpe: Right. I think one or two. Yeah. And that's it. And you know, so I think in the spring, early summer, we'll see some more, you know, and we'll, Hopefully get the word out.

Alice Lema: We don't have a lot of like jugglers and mimes and stuff like they do in some of the beach towns. Is that with that person, if they wanna [00:24:00] put their hat down and play the violin, theoretically that's, well,

Carol Wedman: it's, that's illegal actually. Isn't Well, isn't it?

Shannon Thorpe: Pedaling well pedaling, yes. But if you wanna sit out front, it's called busking. Oh yeah, right. It's

Alice Lema: called busing. That sounds so old english.

Shannon Thorpe: It's, it's, that's why I think, but, but that it is, it is allowed. But you know, you do need to get approved to be sitting there and, and doing that.

Just, you know, if you, if the business owner's okay with you front, oh, just playing is hard, doing that sort of thing, but you certainly can't set up shop all day long and ask for money and I'll play you any song you want for five bucks. That, that sort of thing is not, not,

Alice Lema: No. Good to know. Good to knows. Luck in the sidewalk. Oh the sidewalk. Mm-hmm. . Cuz that would be nice for the food truck people. They could have like a little song and dance while they're having

Carol Wedman: there's, there are special event permits through the city manager's office where if you're like, Hey, I want this band to play Uhhuh on Friday nights, or just this week, you can get a special event.

And a lot of that's also for again, safety back safety. So the police know what's going on where, where there's gonna be. [00:25:00] There was, you know, if you're a business that's traditionally indoors and you're gonna do this outdoor event there's, there's some things that go with it. If you're gonna serve alcohol, you have to fence the perimeter so people can't wander in and out.

People wouldn't know that, right? Like if you weren't working here or you didn't take the time to ask, you know, I'd throw some tables out and have a little party, but there are, there are code impacts to that for safety again.

Alice Lema: And, and this brings up a good point, is if you wanna do something instead of coming and talking to you guys at the end of your project, come and talk to you at the beginning.

Carol Wedman: Absolutely. Some, some plannings reviews could require a committee or commission review, so it could take three months before you're even approved to do some particular venture. You know, I know oftentimes if you move into a new building and it's a big dirt lot and you're on the backside of it, and there might have been a like business there for 25 years, it wasn't required to be paved, [00:26:00] but now you buy it, you move in, well, you're owner, and that could be, 50 thousand dollars. Yeah. So I mean, I think it's, it is best that if you're changing your business in any way or moving. Just we're, we're all electronic, email phones. We try to make it as easy as possible. Give a call, because you don't wanna get stuck with that in the end of the day and go, I didn't have $30,000 for a parking lot.

You know, a driveway in, it's a dirt. It was the same business I had. I know. But today's the day and yesterday was, You know, we don't go into businesses and say Our code has changed. You have to pave. But when it sells, You, you need to be aware of what current code requires.

Alice Lema: Well, and it's so heartbreaking, like if you are in love with the idea of having a gravel driveway for your business and that's part of your vibe, and then you find out it has to be paved. It, it, you know, it just changes things. So always check ahead. So speaking of things we [00:27:00] don't know, what about airbnbs? Do those have to be licensed?

Shannon Thorpe: That's, yes, they do. yes, they do. We call, we call that a vacation rental because you're taking a little, little vacation come into town, you know, renting somebody's room or their little house. So they do need a business. They do. And there's good neighbor guidelines that you know, Carol did a great amount of research on that for us and said this really nice being a good neighbor, all those nice little rules, letting your neighbors know that you're running a little business from your house, you know people are gonna be coming and going for vacation.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's nice. So you send that, how, how many people.

Carol Wedman: They required a 250 feet radius. any, anybody living within a 250 feet radius, you have to notify. And also you have to provide contact information 24 7.

Alice Lema: Well, hey everybody welcome back to the Real Estate Show. We're talking to Shannon thorpe and Carol Wedman of the City of Medford, talking business licenses development services, things going on with our local community and people, you know, [00:28:00] doing, doing things in their homes and in their offices, and how to do 'em correctly and safely. So we were right before the break talking about these surprising things like, you need a, you need a business license if you're gonna sell fruit on the corner, like a lot of people don't know that. But also the Airbnb situation is, is pretty popular. What about that?

Shannon Thorpe: Yeah. You'll need a call, a vacation rental business license with the city here so that you can you have that business, you're making revenue. So you're running a little Airbnb, V R B O, all that for your home.

You need to let your neighbors know, you know, if we have a good neighbor agreement that you sign and you need to let you know your neighbors within 250 feet radius of your home, know that you're running the vacation rental from there, cuz they're gonna see cars coming and going on maybe on just on the weekends or every three or four nights, there's a new vehicle.

It's like, what's going on? You know, your neighbors are nosey you know, and they should be seeing what's going on. And they should be.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Yeah. Especially in today's world.

Shannon Thorpe: Exactly. So, you know, [00:29:00] it is just so those are the things that you need to have. It's really simple. It's not hard at all.

Carol Wedman: For there was a other tagline is that they do need to have 24 hours, seven day a week notification number. So if anything happens, there's someone to call. If you're going to The Bahamas, you need someone in town if you're gonna rent that out. That can be a contact to work any issues.

Do they

Alice Lema: have to be like boots on the ground or just phone?

Carol Wedman: Phone. But if there's an issue, somebody has to be able to work it. That's part of the agreement. That if your neighbors have issues, there's a big party at the. Or, or they, the people who are renting leave garbage in the front yard. You know, that's a no-no. So there are those issues to consider and Also we had an, an interesting, I learned through this, there was a home that had an A D U accessory dwelling unit at the back that they were renting out.

That was all fine. And then they were also renting the master bedroom. They had put a lock on the door and they used their French doors as the entrance for that, and they were using it as a vacation rental. Okay. Again, we're complaint driven. Someone called [00:30:00] and said, Hey, I think they're renting out part of their house is that legal?

So the gal, of course, people were already legally running a Air B&B or V R B O, whatever it was. And she called and she's like, what do I have to do? I just assumed it was okay. But if you are separating a structure, and this is on the building safety side of the house, you have to have fire separation.

If it, between those two oh, you do just lock the door and say, we're good. And, and that's really the key to it, is fire separation. That's the big, the big difference between a separate structure. And so she, the particular person that we worked with was like, well then I'm not gonna rent it out right now, but I am gonna get back to this and, and have that done.

So people aren't, Most of the time trying to, you know, break the law. It's just an awareness thing. That's a, that's a thing that exactly this person wouldn't think of, right?

Alice Lema: Yeah. Yeah. And you guys are so nice about it. you know, we've had some real estate people doing like things in RVs. Like [00:31:00] they're, they're doing counseling. They're using their, their fifth wheel and having people coming in. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about what's wrong with that.

Well,

Shannon Thorpe: it's unbelievable. It's, it's, yeah, that would be a different situation. We might

Alice Lema: I'm sorry for laughing. I'm sorry.

Shannon Thorpe: No, no, no. It's true. We, we, we have some stories, so, but we won't , but, but you know, like something like that, it's like we, you wouldn't be able to rent your RV out on, like, next to like, your driveway, right. The un gravelled area, that's, that's, that's not allowed, you know.

Alice Lema: Can you rent your RV out at all?

Shannon Thorpe: Not sitting at your home.

Alice Lema: So the Airbnb thing,

Carol Wedman: I mean, I think if you put it on a permanent foundation, you might get into a whole different world. I'm not gonna speak to that cuz I am not technical as far as that goes. The only code I know is through osmosis, you know, here and there. But yeah. But I think that might be an option that would be a reason to call the building department, right? Talk to some of our experts,

Alice Lema: but there's, there's Air B&B there's people Air B&B in their trailer. [00:32:00]

Carol Wedman: Well, we have had to ask someone to quit doing that. Yes. They can't, you can't live or do that, that is code that prevents you from doing that. Yeah. And that was kinda like the home that rented out the master. The guy was already renting out a room in his house and then he had an RV in the backyard and there was some liberal, we, we backed off on code during the fire because

Alice Lema: was really nice actually. Thank you.

Carol Wedman: Yeah, so we let people live in, and it's not really us, it's planning, but we, people were allowed to live in their RV we don't, building doesn't have anything to do with anything on wheels. We just don't

Alice Lema: yeah. Well, we've got some good life lessons today.

Carol Wedman: do you have any time left to talk about rental registration? Just a moment.

Alice Lema: Oh yeah, please, please. What, what is, what is rental registration?

Shannon Thorpe: Well, it's for any owner of a home that is renting out long-term so that you have, you know, that's really what you bought this piece of property as a, you know you know, an asset of business, you know, for you.

You need to register that home. So with our program, with the cities so [00:33:00] that we know is for, you know, emergency services, it helps us out that way. You know, making sure everything is safe, you know, that it's not a problem type situations we know. Yeah. I don't know. You know, those

Alice Lema: Well, just so you know, you know what's going on.

Carol Wedman: Well, it's to maintain, we maintain a database so that if police or fire get called. They can actually gi s right to the point, see who the owner is, contact information. That's the biggest reason we do that. And also for housing inventory. We have no way to know who's renting and who's not right now.

So we we're right around six, 700 probably around 700 rental registrations, but we're in the process of transferring it to the utility billing department, which has a list of all rentals already in hand.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's right. They do.

Carol Wedman: So this is, yeah, this is something for you to know for your clients, the other 1300 people that aren't paying right now, and I'm assuming cuz they don't know they need to, will be notified once it transfers and, and are our, the cost ranges from $40 [00:34:00] to a hundred dollars a year. So we just take it on an honor system. You know, people know it's code, they pay, we send 'em renewal.

But the utility billing system has a list of people, you know, they know what, what, what, which are rentals. So you'll be notified that you are required to pay the annual registration fee. You are a victim, meaning those who own rentals.

Shannon Thorpe: It's nice to know the owner. We can contact the owner. A lot of these folks, they don't even live in the state. There are quite a few that don't live in Oregon.

Alice Lema: It's shocking how many people live somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah.

Carol Wedman: I didn't know, I didn't know that until we started doing the rental registration program a few years ago at our desk. And so it, it's nice to be able to have a good contact for them, you know? And a lot of 'em don't have a property management company,

Alice Lema: They don't, there's Yep. A lot of do it yourselfers. Yeah. So going back to the Air B&B, If you're renting rooms, then if you're Air B&Bing several rooms, then would you just register, rental, register the address, or are you [00:35:00] registering. You know, the room rental's just getting to be so popular. And we only have a minute left. We're gonna have to have you guys back to talk more about this, but just like in, in two sentences, what about room rental? Licenses or no license,

Shannon Thorpe: you would need a business license rental, you know vacation rental. It's short term. Now, renting out your room you, you're rent out your own could, could be anybody, something people, a business license on you know, it's just keeping a long-term rental.

That is the rental registration program. Vacation rental would be your short term where you're like posting it, you know, online Airbnb, you know, vrbo, all those little sites. It's very short term.

Okay. Well thank you Carol and Shannon. We definitely wanna have you back on. This program will be repeated tomorrow, Sunday at 6:00 PM And just a reminder, the station is moved to 99.5 fm. The sound is way better. they're not on AM anymore. Have a beautiful southern Oregon weekend.