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With less than two months until B.C.’s short-term rental crackdown takes effect, some municipalities are embracing the new rules as a way to address the housing crisis, while others are asking for one more banner Airbnb summer.

The B.C. NDP’s short-term rental rules take effect May 1 and allow only short-term rentals in an operator’s principal residence, with hefty fines for rule breakers.

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The tourist hot spot of Tofino — despite an exemption as a resort community — voted Tuesday to opt in to the restrictions to ensure residents and seasonal workers have rental options. Meanwhile, the City of Victoria is considering a motion to ask the province to push back the changes until Nov. 1, after the peak tourist season.

Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto and Coun. Stephen Hammond say in the motion, which will be debated Thursday, that implementing the short-term rental rules on May 1 will “adversely affect current (short-term rental) hosts immediately before the summer high season, and challenge the city’s capacity to accommodate a booming tourist market.”

Alto, who stood next to Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon and Premier David Eby when they announced the short-term rental legislation in October, said she still supports the new rules but has heard from Airbnb owners that they need more time to either sell their properties or convert them to long-term rentals.

“I think the stories that we’ve heard are related to the fact that this has been a significant mortgage helper for a number of them and they consider themselves to be part of the hospitality industry in the alternative accommodation sector,” Alto said.

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Kahlon praised Tofino for embracing the short-term rental rules and dismissed Victoria’s calls for an extension, saying communities have had plenty of time to prepare for the legislation, which was passed in November.

“There’s people struggling in Victoria right now to get access to housing,” Kahlon said. “And most people would say, ‘Why are we taking so long to do this?’”

Kahlon noted the City of Victoria already has a bylaw banning people from operating a short-term rental that’s not in their principal residence so the new rules won’t have much impact in the capital.

What will change for Victoria, however, is that the province’s short-term rental crackdown will apply to about 1,600 units that are currently exempt because they were grandfathered in when Victoria passed its bylaw in 2018.

About 30 municipalities, including Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna, regulate short-term rentals through bylaws and licence fees. Smaller municipalities with populations under 10,000 and 14 resort communities, including Tofino, Whistler and Osoyoos, wouldn’t be subject to the new rules but communities could choose to opt in.

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While Tofino council endorsed opting in to the short-term rental rules, the majority of short-term rentals in the West Coast town are in people’s basement suites or on their property. People are allowed to rent out one unit in their principal residence or their entire home as long as they live in it the majority of the time.

Tofino Mayor Dan Law said his community “has a big housing need and that was at the heart of council’s decision — that this would be a good first step to protect existing homes to help move some of those commercialized homes back into the ownership or rental market hopefully to address some of the pressures that they’re facing.”

Tofino also has many strata hotels that are exempt from the new rules, leaving just 40 units that would have to convert to long-term rentals to avoid facing fines under the provincial legislation.

Kahlon said he’s reviewing requests from municipalities that have asked to opt out of the short-term rental rules but said only four communities — two of which are Fort St. John and West Kelowna — meet that threshold of having a vacancy rate above three per cent for two consecutive years.

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Parksville Mayor Doug O’Brien has asked the province to exempt custom-built, short-term rental suites from principal ownership rules.

O’Brien said during a Union of B.C. Municipalities summit last month that he supports the legislation but wants to see an exemption for about 300 short-term rental suites had been built on land in Parksville under tourism zoning.

Kahlon so far has ruled out any special exemption for the Resort Drive properties in Parksville, noting the community has a vacancy rate of 1.2 per cent and needs housing to address the labour shortage. Strata hotels are already exempt from the new rules.

B.C. United housing critic Karin Kirkpatrick said the disparate approaches from B.C. municipalities shows the government “didn’t actually talk to these communities before it brought in this legislation.”

In the case of Parksville, Kirkpatrick said it makes no sense to have the rules apply to vacation properties that were “never intended to be used as residential.”

The rules will have a financial impact for the community, since 40 per cent of municipal revenue comes from commercial taxes on Resort Drive, she said.

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Kirkpatrick said short-term rental owners are confused as to what constitutes a strata hotel and have received little clarity from the Ministry of Housing.

She said Kahlon should heed the calls from Victoria’s mayor to delay the new rules until after the summer.

“This was brought in right at the beginning of the summer tourism season and people haven’t had time to adjust to it,” she said.

Kirkpatrick said she’s heard from tourists and wedding plannings who have balked at sky-high hotel prices this summer with some reporting $600-a-night rooms in Vancouver in June, July and August.

kderosa@postmedia.com 

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