The B.C. Hotel Association wants the short-term rental system reworked to limit the units to home-sharing only.
This would allow a homeowner with a spare bedroom to make some extra money through a short-term rental unit.
At present, many short-term rental units in Victoria are offered by operators who do not use them as a primary residence. Some people might rent up to six, 10 or 20 units, often in condominiums, said Ingrid Jarrett, president and chief executive of the B.C. Hotel Association.
“We know that there is a significant number of short-term rentals that are actually commercial operators.”
Victoria’s finance department has confirmed that “typically STRs (short-term rentals) will remain as residential — B.C. Assessment determines this,” said city spokesman Bill Eisenhauer. That is different from hotels, which see their property taxes based on operating a commercial business.
“This desire to see this changed has been brought to B.C. Assessment’s attention several times by the city but the short answer from them is that their legislation would need to be changed to allow them to do that,” Eisenhauer said.
The B.C. Assessment Authority is a provincial Crown corporation. Changes to legislation that governs it would have to come from the province.
Jarrett said: ”Our position is that the best practice for a city is to limit short-term rentals to home-sharing.”
One reason is that Victoria is in “dire” need of affordable housing, she said.
More than 1,000 short-term rentals in Victoria are advertised on online platforms and Jarrett believes there are many more in the market. The units are typically offered through Airbnb or Vbro.
Many are not within a home and are taking inventory out of the rental housing market, Jarrett said.
Neighbourhoods were not developed to serve the short-term housing market and can find it disruptive to have additional people coming and going, she said. “They were built for residential communities.”
Hotels are suffering from the housing shortage because would-be employees say they can’t accept a job because there is no place for them to live, Jarrett said.
Victoria has two levels of fees for short-term rental operators. For principal residences the annual fee is $150. For non-principal residences, the licence fee is $1,500.
It is a challenge for the city to identify short-term rental operators because online advertising platforms do not require listings to include an address. That information is shared between the site, property owner and guests.
Victoria has an enforcement team to find and close down illegal short-term rentals and to ensure they comply with bylaws. There are more than 400 open investigations at this time.
The city has been successful in court against five operators, collecting a total $20,000 in fines and court orders. Another $6,250 in fines were levied against other operators.
Paul Nursey, president and chief executive of Destination Greater Victoria, said while Victoria is doing a good job, it does not have enough capacity to fully enforce its short-term rental bylaw regarding unlicensed units.
“That’s a real big problem,” he said. “The city needs to know where they are.”
Nursey wants the province to bring in commercial property tax requirements for full-time, short-term rentals.
Victoria Coun. Marianne Alto has recommended that the short-term rental bylaw be reviewed next year, which will mark its five-year adoption.
A review could fit into the city’s conversation about housing in general, she said.
When the bylaw came before council, she did not support it, fearing that it went too far. Alto said she wasn’t against regulating short-term rentals, but did not want to close the door to people who relied on them for needed income.
“So before we just start tinkering kind of randomly, let’s have a look at the whole thing and measure it against the goals we set out then [when the bylaw was passed].” This would mean looking at challenges such as implementation, enforcement and data collection.
