Council plans to regulate thousands of Vancouver’s short-term rentals

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It was standing room only at Vancouver City Hall’s council chamber Tuesday night for the first public hearing into regulating short-term rentals like Airbnb.

Nearly 100 people signed up to speak, many who did, gave their support for the city’s proposed regulations, but not everyone is on-board.

The City wants to legalize most of the 6,000 short-term rental units in Vancouver, so long as there is a business license, and only one booking is allowed in a principal residence at a time.

Alex Dagg, Policy Manager with Airbnb Canada recommends the definition be refined to home-sharing at a primary Vancouver address.

“For example, I know a filmmaker who lives in Victoria, but keeps a small Vancouver apartment, so that he can easily commute to his work studio here in the city,” she explains. “The only way he can afford to do this is by listing his Vancouver home on Airbnb for the three days he’s not living in it during the week.”

Dagg also feels that one booking is too few and would prefer to see the city allow three bookings per residence.

Secondary suites and laneway homes would also be eligible under the city’s plan, but secondary homes, commercial and investment properties would not.

Despite the near-zero vacancy rate in the city and sky-high housing costs, Dagg told council that home-sharing is one solution to housing affordability.

“Vancouver Airbnb hosts report that they spend more than half of their home-sharing earnings on their rent, mortgage, or other household expenses.”

However, another speaker, strata lawyer Polina Furtula, is planning a class action lawsuit against Airbnb for how they profit from the use of other people’s property.

Dagg wouldn’t comment about the lawsuit but would say that they want to collaborate with strata boards.

“People who live in strata and condos, they need the right to be able to home-share too, and in many cases, just to be able to afford the unit that they’re struggling to stay in.”

Others who spoke to council to support their short-term rentals plan include the Chair of the Renters Advisory Committee, Karen Sawatzky, and Ty Speer, President & CEO of Tourism Vancouver. However, he doesn’t like the proposed 3 per cent tax levy on visitors.

Speer doesn’t think short-term rentals will take a chunk out of the hotel business, saying that across the board, all hotels are doing well across the city.

The public hearing continues on Thursday and Airbnb will meet with the city again in November.

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