Area C ‘opted-in’ to the Short Term Rental Accommodation Act at the SRD Board meeting yesterday. There was a spirited discussion in which the Director from Area D and two of his Campbell River colleagues discussed their reservations. Regional Director Mark Vonesch showed everyone an exception that would allow some absentee landlords to continue operating their short term rentals. When the final vote was taken, Area C’s motion to opt-in was approved with only two dissenting Directors.
On March 5 a survey was launched to determine public opinion in Area C. 58% of the 405 respondents want Area C to opt-in.
Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney gave a summary of her constituent’s discussion:
“I was happy to see that such a good percentage of the residents weighed in on the survey. In addition to the survey, I heard from community members, and responded to their questions.”
“Last Wednesday, I held a community meeting. There were about 75 people that showed up to share their thoughts, which were wide ranging. By a show of hands, the vast majority present were short term rental operators, and less than a handful of renters were present.”
“The main theme that I heard from folks recently, and at the meeting, was quality of life on Quadra and that limiting off island ownership may likely provide benefits. This was from neighbors of short term rentals, and short term rental operators themselves.”
“I did hear the Residential Tenancy Act frequently raised as a reason why people don’t want to rent their homes long term.”
“I also heard from three property owners who live off island and enjoy their home on Quadra as a family getaway, with short term rentals filling in gaps and funding its upkeep. Those folks were not in favor of Area C opting in.”
“Quadra Island thrives on tourism. Short term rentals provide valuable benefits to our community and they’re making it possible for people to live here who might otherwise not be able to, whether it’s helping with their mortgage or supplementing retirement income.”
“Also, Area C is experiencing a housing crisis. There are too many islanders working island jobs and living in inadequate or precarious housing. RVs as quasi-permanent homes for low wage island workers are all too prevalent. There is no easy answer here. There is no silver bullet to solve housing, and if there was, it wouldn’t be a crisis.”
“I truly empathize with those who will be affected by this decision. Based on the results of the survey and the many interactions, emails, messages, and community meeting responses I’ve had, I will be moving that Area C opts in.”
Three of the directors expressed reservations. As the population of Campbell River is close to 35,000, it is one of the communities that is automatically ‘in.’
Susan Sinnott, from Campbell River, said, “If the main basis is because we have a shortfall of adequate housing in the affected area, is there any baseline and measurement we’re going to do to see whether this actually has an impact: positively or negatively? Because I think if we’re going to make this decision, we better know whether we’re actually making the right decision.”
Robyn Mawhinney: “I think that we have some pretty good data from our Housing Needs Assessment that was done in 2022, by each electoral area, and I believe that. Meredith could speak to this, but I believe that a new housing needs assessment is going to be completed soon. As housing needs assessments are completed, there will be more data to show the change.”
“Further, to your point about this changing the amount of long term rentals, I think that may be something which occurs, but I do think that there are other reasons to opt-in as well. With all municipalities having a population of 10,000 and over being mandatorily opted-in unless they have over a 3 percent vacancy rates and places like Tofino choosing to opt-in there may be investment capital that’s looking for a place to land and in a desirable area like Quadra Island, which landed next to Antarctica on Forbes 2020s list of great islands. I think that further pressures on property prices and long term housing availability would be brought to bear if we were not opted in.”
Campbell River Director Ben Lanyon wanted to know, “If an area opts into this, or doesn’t opt-in, can that be adjusted later? Can you opt back out in a subsequent period?”
Robyn Mawhinney: “You can, when you opt-in by March 31st of any year it doesn’t take effect until November 1st and there is an opportunity by March 31st of any year to change what you want to do.”
Meredith Starkey, Manager of Parks and Planning at the SRD, confirmed this, “Director Mawhinney has answered it correctly. The opt-in is an annual decision.”
John Rice, Regional Director of Area D, explained why his area opted out: “When I was taking a look at opting in and opting out, I was quite concerned with the primary resident requirements. I’ll give you a prime example. I know that there are folks that still hang on to mom and dad’s house. It’s not their primary residence. It’s in a beautiful location. It would be a shame for us to have ‘opted-in’ and see those things get taken away because if the property owner is not willing to rent it out long term, then they actually need to change the use on that property. The minute they change the use on the property that triggers a revenue Canada GST payback on the assessed value of the house. So all of a sudden, it starts looking like very expensive propositions.”
“Not only that, I was trying to get more information on the status of tourism. We know that through COVID, there’s been quite a bit of damage done to the tourism system. I was able to reach out to a few of the fishing guides. They want to see short term rentals and typically the people that come out and use those services aren’t interested in using a room. They’re interested in using an entire premise. So, again, I was quite concerned and I’m still concerned, but I think that because we didn’t opt-in, it gives us an opportunity now to go back and take a look at our own zoning and our own bylaws. Let’s see, what can we do and then we’ll address this again next year.”
Lanyon added,”I really appreciate staff doing the survey. I know there’s no way to know if the response was biased in any way, but it did clearly show that area C residents would like to opt-in. It’s nice to know that we can opt back out if it proves to be a mistake to have opted in.”
“I think there’s a certain amount of autonomy that should be extended to the Area Directors for decisions like this. So, if that’s what the Area C Director wants, and has done the work behind it, then I would support it, but in general, I think the correct approach is not a ban. The correct approach is a cap that is sensitive to the tourism needs of the area in particular. I got the idea from an article in the Harvard Business Review. So I’m not creating this from scratch, but one of the examples they gave was parts of San Diego have a specific bylaw that caps the number of short term rentals at about 30%. Then you’ll have many other communities that are less tourism oriented, that will be at 2%. So you choose the areas that will be tourism focused and the areas that won’t.”
“What’s being done here is a provincial hammer. It’s a really blunt instrument and it is very damaging to a lot of people. It will create a lot of animosity and distrust of higher levels of government because people did invest their life savings in some cases and made their retirement and switched the use of their property to short term rental. Like Director Rice said, if they switch it back they’ll have a 5 percent GST bill on the value of their property at that time. It’s really devastating for a lot of people and it shouldn’t be like that. This sort of thing shouldn’t be so blunt, it should be phased. So I don’t like it in general, but I’m staying out of it.”
Susan Sinnott: “Going back to my concern with respect to whether it’s actually going to reach the effects that you want and measuring it. I am more inclined to be in favor of this. We have a sunset clause on this particular opt-in, and it requires us to come back in a year or a year and a half when we have the appropriate data to reauthorize it.”
“I’m also listening to what Director Lanyon says. That makes me very nervous to proceed right now, without having a better understanding of the impacts on the various people. This may take people completely by surprise if they find out they’re going to be facing several thousand dollars in tax implications that they did not anticipate. Their opinion may have been very different in terms of the survey. I’m just really not comfortable at this point.”
Ben Lanyon: “I just wanted to say it’s already gone through for Area B, I believe at the last meeting. What did we do with Area A?”
Regional Director, Gerald Whalley’s response was a single word: “Nothing.”
Ben Lanyon: “Nothing. (Laughter) Okay, So we’d be inconsistent now applying that logic, since we’ve approved Area B.”
Cortes Island Regional Director Mark Vonesch was able to throw some new light on how the act was to be applied. The Ministry has informed him that some absentee landlords will still be allowed to rent out their properties as short term rentals.
“Two big things I think it’s good for everybody to know:
- People can still do short term rentals in these properties. They just can’t publicly list it. So people who’ve had a property on Quadra and Cortes for the last 20 years that rent to their family and friends or have an email list of people that they rent to, that can still continue .This act just takes away their ability to advertise publicly through the popular platforms that we’re aware of.
- Secondly, which I think is a great part of the act, is that if you have a full time renter on the property, that full time renter can act as the host for the short term rental.”
Ben Lanyon: “So if you have a short term rental in an area you can meet the principal residence requirement by having at least one long term residential tenant on that property.”
Mark Vonesch: “If that long term renter is willing to be the host, it’s not just having a long term renter, that renter also needs to be the host.”
Chair Mark Baker finally brought the discussion to an end and called the vote on whether Electoral Area C opt-in to the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act.
“Okay, we’re going to call the question, All in favor … Opposed … We have two opposed, Director Sinnott and Director Rice. The motion is carried.”
Links of Interest:
- Electoral Area C Housing Needs Report (May 2022) – SRD
- New rules for short-term rentals – Government of BC
- Articles about, or mentioning, the short term rental accommodations act on Cortes Currents
Top image credit: RVs are quasi-permanent homes for some low wage workers in Area C – Photo by Krista via Flickr (CC BY 2.0 DEED)
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