Business Community Government

Trouble in paradise: Short-term rental on sandspit becomes flashpoint for controversy

From the watery world of the Lighthouse Beach short-term rental property, it’s easy to forget worldly cares. The site, boasting two complete houses and a boat dock, straddles the sandspit at the mouth of Gig Harbor Bay. It is adjacent to the city’s iconic lighthouse and its grassy, marine-access-only park.

With ample picture windows looking out onto Mount Rainier and Point Defiance, colorful passing boat traffic, and the sound of waves lapping against beaches on both sides, it’s many a VRBO-er’s idea of paradise. (And not that expensive. The $1,100 nightly rate in high season may sound steep, but that’s less than $79 per head when filled to its 14-guest capacity.)

But this beachfront Nirvana has become a flashpoint for controversy. At a Pierce County Council meeting last week, Lighthouse Beach co-owner Dave Baumgardner’s appointment to a Pierce County land use advisory commission (LUAC) was scuttled for reasons involving the house.

Pierce County Councilmember Robyn Denson, who represents territory including the Gig Harbor Peninsula, blocked the appointment. Denson said unresolved septic issues at Lighthouse Beach disqualify Baumgardner from serving on the board, though there is no law or official rule to that effect.

What is a LUAC?

Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier said he felt “surprised and disappointed” that Denson blocked his chosen applicant from the volunteer position. The county has multiple LUACs, which advise Pierce County officials on land-use matters, hold public hearings and make recommendations on development issues.

Some in the community of short-term rental owners charge Denson with having an unspoken agenda in blocking Baumgardner. Denson doesn’t want Baumgardner, owner of Lighthouse Beach and three other local STRs, on the commission because she believes he would bring a pro-STR viewpoint  to the LUAC, just as the county gears up to consider more stringent STR regulations, these Baumgardner allies said.

Some critics argue that short-term rentals, promoted widely on platforms such as AirBNB and VRBO, jeopardize the supply of affordable housing and hurt residential neighborhoods’ character by bringing in transient, sometimes disruptive strangers. Many jurisdictions, including the city of Gig Harbor, have enacted laws and permitting systems to ward off such potential problems.

Language being developed for a comprehensive plan update due this year indicates unincorporated Pierce County may soon see greater STR regulation.

“Robyn did not want my husband to serve on the land use committee because she is using the input of this (LUAC) to regulate and restrict short-term rentals (and) he would not serve her purpose. She used a septic issue to deny him,” Annie Jolie, Baumgardner’s wife and business partner, wrote in a letter posted to the Facebook page of the Gig Harbor Short-Term Rental Alliance, a group representing STR owners.

Second nomination, second rejection

Last week’s meeting marked the second time the county executive promoted Baumgardner for the LUAC position, only to have Denson shoot the appointment down. The previous attempt was in June 2023.

Baumgardner’s professional background in real estate and development “would be very valuable in a land use commission,” Dammeier said. “He brings a lot to the table.”

Dammeier noted that in addition to Baumgardner’s business background, he has a strong record of community involvement. Among other good works, Baumgardner founded and operates 811 House, a Tacoma residence that has provided transitional clean and sober housing for more than 2,000 men released from prison.

Dammeier noted that Lighthouse Beach’s septic system, by the most reliable current accounts — including an e-mail from a county attorney to Baumgardner’s lawyer — does not appear to be broken. Rather than leaking or overflowing, the main problem with the tank and drainfield appears to be that they’re old and were installed in the 1970s without permits. (Complete Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department records on the properties were not available during the time this story was being written.)

Denson denied that short-term rental ownership had anything to do with her amendment that removed Baumgardner’s name from the list of LUAC appointees — a move the majority of council members went along with.

‘A number of concerns’ from constituents

An informal but longstanding agreement within the council holds that members should have final say on who represents their districts on commissions and boards. This could have motivated some of the votes that went her way.

Party politics, too, could have played a role. Dammeier and all council members who voted to keep Baumgardner’s name on the list of prospective appointees are Republican. All those who voted to remove his name are Democrats.

Denson’s office has received “a number of concerns over the past couple years by people in the community” focused on the septic system on Baumgardner’s Lighthouse Beach property, Denson said at the July 9 County Council meeting. She declined a request to provide details of the citizens’ concerns.

“There have been enforcement letters that have gone out but as of yet there’s been no septic applications” to fix Lighthouse Beach’s septic problem, “and I was told just maybe two hours ago now that the site is out of compliance,” she said at the meeting.

“This (LUAC) makes recommendations and advises the hearing examiner on what other people can do with their property, what they can and can’t do, and it also includes a lot of work in the shoreline,” Denson said. “Shoreline permits may be required for (Baumgardner) to do whatever (he) may need to do with an authorized septic repair when they decide to move to that level.”

“I also really think that we should have people on our land use advisory commissions that are positive land use examples to others,” Denson said.

Dave Baumgardner

A Tacoma native, Baumgardner’s background is eclectic. Starting at age 19, he spent 25 years selling chocolate in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, including one stint representing Mars and one with Tacoma-based Brown & Haley, he said. While working, he graduated from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, with a bachelor’s degree and earned a certificate from a Bible institute.

Later posts included owner and president of Smart Choice Pet Products (maker of the Litter Spinner cat litter box), and as a farmer, owning and operating 50 acres of avocado and citrus orchards in California, for both domestic and international markets, he said.

Now 64 years old, Baumgardner’s current business interests tend toward real estate and development. With Jolie, he has luxury waterfront STRs in the Gig Harbor Peninsula’s Cromwell neighborhood (Captain’s House – sleeps up to 6 guests) and on Colvos Passage in Ollala (Driftwood Beach – sleeps 12), and another whole-house short-term rental in Tacoma’s tony Prospect Hill neighborhood (sleeps 11). Also in Tacoma, he co-owns approximately 7 acres of mostly vacant land, directly across Ruston Way and over the railroad tracks from the Point Ruston development.

Baumgardner and Jolie, who married in 2016, live in Cromwell. In their short-term rental operation, “Annie does all management including communication with each guest, decorating, hospitality and some cleaning,” Baumgardner said. He said he is not looking to add more STRs to their group and in fact “may divest at some point.”

An LLC owned by Baumgardner, Jolie and another investor paid $850,000 for the Lighthouse Beach property in late 2018. Lighthouse Beach’s address is 7510 and 7506 Goodman Drive NW, though visitors access the land via a walkway that starts where Goodman Drive ends and passes through several other properties.

Questions about septic system

Disclosures from the seller, Berger Brown General Partnership, said the septic system worked fine. But there was no Report of System Status (RSS), a document typically commissioned by a seller and issued by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, stating the condition of the system at the time of inspection, Baumgardner said.

After acquiring the property, the new owners had the septic tanks pumped and inspected. They fixed a few small problems, including a missing baffle and a crack in a tank, Baumgardner said.

These repairs triggered reports to TPCHD, which required stress tests on the septic tanks. About 2 months ago, the department told the owners they needed to find the locations of the drainfields, he said.

After a lot of digging, they learned that at least one of the drainfields was under a lawn just steps from Puget Sound’s high tide mark.

Around that time, Baumgardner said, the health department discovered an issue that is proving much more difficult to solve. The presence of 4-inch PVC pipe in the drainfields suggests the septic system was built in the 1970s. But no permit from that or any other era could be found.

Health district ‘checking in weekly’

Baumgardner said a county official who visited said the county may have lost the permits. About one month ago, TPCHD told him the septic infrastructure serving the LLC’s properties on the sandspit lacks permits and Lighthouse Beach needs to have a permitted system. TPCHD did not set a deadline to complete the work. But health department spokesman Kenny Via said “we are checking in weekly with the owner to ensure he is making progress.”

Pierce County is strict on issues such as buildings’ and septic infrastructure’s setbacks from Puget Sound. While septic systems like the current one at Lighthouse Beach may exist around the Sound, they were built many years ago, when regulations were looser. If the owners obtained permits at the time, they’re “grandfathered in” today and allowed to stay.

But there is no way the existing septic system at Lighthouse Beach, with its drainfield next to the beach, would get a permit today. And with the two houses and the sandy/gravelly beach taking up nearly all of the available land at the site, there’s no room to fit a new conventional system.

Adding to the challenges is the fact that the entire site is occasionally under water: Baumgardner said that during a king tide in recent years, the water rose to four inches above the Lighthouse Beach houses’ floorboards.

Seeking solutions

There may be other options, such as a costly engineered septic system. Baumgardner said they’ve already spent “thousands of dollars” to comply with the health department, and he’s scrambling to learn about possible solutions.

The existing septic system “functions as it was designed, but it’s not up to code now,” he said. “It’s never overflowed, it’s never leaked.” Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department did not respond in time to a request for records of complaints, malfunctions or violations at the site.

Some people suggest the Lighthouse Beach septic system has bigger problems than a lack of permits. A citizen complaint entered via Pierce County’s code enforcement website in October 2021 claimed “The septic systems have never worked correctly. Pump trucks show up regularly to pump the undersized tanks. A drainfield was built without permits next to the beach. After a busy weekend of rental use the place smells like raw sewage.”

In the notes on that record, a county official reported speaking to the property owners’ attorney. The attorney told him “there is a lawsuit between the complainant and his client and there is a long history.” Notes indicate the septic issues at the site were forwarded to TPCHD. That agency does not enter its findings in the code enforcement or any other public-facing database.

Code violation not disqualifying

Even serious septic violations at Baumgardner’s property would not automatically disqualify him from serving on the LUAC.  “There is nothing in the (LUAC) application that says if you have a code violation, if you have a violation at all, that dismisses you from being on a committee or commission,” Council Member Dave Morell said at the county council meeting last week.

Morell represents District 6 (eastern Pierce County) on the county council. He said that during his six-year tenure, the council has not rejected an applicant for a volunteer board or commission recommended by the county executive.

“I think we have a standard that is being applied here that is not being applied to anybody else,” County Executive Dammeier said.

Denson countered Dammeier’s and Morell’s charge that she is holding Baumgardner to a higher standard than other prospective appointees. “My office always does due diligence regarding candidates. The vetting process is not formalized, however, and what we look at really depends upon the nature of the board or commission” for which a citizen is volunteering.

“The topic of land use, development, growth, etc. is very important to constituents in District 7 so I take appointments to our Land Use Advisory Commissions very seriously. Other Districts may have other priorities or other tolerances for compliance,” she said.

County STR regulations on horizon?

Residents of unincorporated Pierce County may see more stringent regulation of short-term rentals than in the past. The county is updating its comprehensive plan. The council must adopt a new plan, by the end of this year. Among other changes, it will likely contain language addressing STRs for the first time.

The county council approved a measure calling for the updated plan to determine how to provide “adequate protections to address (short-term rentals’) impacts to neighborhood character, the environment, and infrastructure such as ferries, parking, and on-site sewage disposal systems” while also recognizing STRs’ economic benefits to property owners.

It also calls for consideration of “restrictions on the number of housing units that may be used as short-term rentals to preserve residential housing supplies while also protecting areas that rely on tourism activity for economic opportunities.”

The STR-related language recommended for the comp plan appears to still be evolving. There’s no guarantee it will wind up in the final, adopted version. And even if it does, it’s a long road from adding these kinds of general recommendations in the comp plan to enacting laws that flow from the recommendations.

LUAC jurisdiction

It’s unclear what role the LUACs would play in crafting or enforcing new rules. However, the Gig Harbor Peninsula LUAC did make a recommendation about whether to have the Pierce County Planning and Public Works Department look at the impacts, pro and con, of STRs in its Environmental Impact Statement for the updated comp plan. The LUAC accepted public comment on the matter.

Denson said Pierce County will approach new laws affecting STRs “in a thoughtful and careful way.”

“We may put off the issue for additional study and will put together a workgroup, made up of a variety of stakeholders (including STR owners) in 2025 to really dig into the STR issue,” Denson said. “I look forward to the productive contributions of STR owners/operators as well as making sure everyday residents have a voice.”