Another report on Airbnbs and other online short-term platforms, went before City of Powell River Committee of the Whole on Tuesday, February 5. This was the fourth time staff has reported to the committee on bylaws to regulate short-term rentals in Powell River.
Senior planner Daniella Fergusson told the committee most of the changes are in the business licence bylaw.
Fergusson said city staff proposes a fee of $180 per year if the home is the owner’s principal residence for short-term rental and $2,000 per year for vacation rentals.
Planning staff also recommended a new short-term rental category called vacation rentals.
“The vacation rental is for people who are not renting out the house that they live in, so it's an investor who has a second additional property and they want to short-term rent that property,” said Fergusson. She added that planning staff recommended a limit of 10 licensed vacation rentals.
“I understand that you’ve already got one phone call from someone who wants four of them,” said mayor Dave Formosa.
In addition to that, Powell River resident Kimberley Young wants three vacation rental licences and the recommended cap does not fit her plans.
Young said she and her husband have a main home, the home next door, which has been redeveloped for a long-term rental and a planned short-term rental. The Youngs bought a second property for one long-term and one short-term rental. They also have another property that has three units, with two long-term tenants and they want to convert the third to short-term rental.
Young said she wants to provide a combination of rentals in the four properties, which would amount to 30 per cent of the available licences for the vacation rental category.
“They’re only giving 10 so what chance do I get if I cannot develop these properties the way I want?” said Young. “The way the current bylaws allow, we’ll just sell them.”
According to her research, Fergusson said nearly all other communities in BC don’t allow vacation rentals. Penticton and Sechelt are two that have bylaws for them and those are more restrictive than what planning staff is recommending for Powell River.
By contrast, Fergusson said short-term rentals would be home-based businesses in single family zones.
“You can rent out your main house and secondary suites,” she said.
Short-term rentals will replace bed and breakfasts and there would be a cap of 50 licences available. But staff is no longer recommending a lottery to decide the number of allowable Airbnbs, according to Fergusson.
She said a lottery would make it difficult for short-term rental operators to plan their businesses. For example, she said if someone in November wants to take bookings for next February, under the lottery system that would be impossible.
“What we really struggled with is if we don't have a lottery system then how can we fairly give people short-term rental licences with that 50-cap limit?” said Fergusson. “It seemed to us that there was a fair way to give people licences every year so removing the lottery will also serve to remove the cap on short-term rental licences.”
Fergusson said there are currently about 50 Airbnbs listed in Powell River.
“We're talking about removing the cap,” she said. “Staff believes that if the market is leading the way then we still will be somewhere in that 50-unit range.”
It has taken three years for the city to get to this point in establishing Airbnbs in Powell River. The subject first came onto council’s agenda at the March 1, 2016 Committee of the Whole meeting, according to Fergusson, and subsequent reports were all sent back to staff.
The committee moved approval to send the most recent recommendations to council but there remains second and third readings and public hearings.
“This is all new and I think if we can consider this a living document with all these questions that we have--and we know we’re going to make mistakes, and we’re going to learn as we go and we always come back and tweak, listen and adjust--they can be changed,” said Formosa.
