Short-term rental owners and tourism operators are amplifying calls for urgent changes to provincially-legislated restrictions implemented in May 2024 in an effort to create more long-term housing.
Stakeholders gathered at the Basil and Mint restaurant in Kelowna, B.C., Wednesday night for a meeting organized by Airbnb.
“We need to come to a conclusion and overcome this challenge together,” said Chris Petty, the owner of Basil and Mint. “Hopefully we get our tourists back. We’ll get our friends back.”
Petty and others, who attended the meeting, called the restrictions devastating for the local tourism industry and business sector.
“I have half the staff I used to,” Petty said.
With Kelowna’s vacancy on track to stay above the required 3 per cent rate for two consecutive years for the province to consider easing the restrictions, city council is poised to request a partial exemption to allow certain buildings to again operate on a short-term basis.
However, even if approved, those changes wouldn’t go into effect until fall 2026.
“That’s a whole summer that people are going to be missing. Another one. Three in a row,” Petty said. “That’s devastating.”
It’s why they want the province to fast-track the exemption, not only ahead of summer but in advance of major events coming to Kelowna including the B.C. Summer Games and the Memorial Cup.
“We’re going to opt out. Why make us wait?” said Dale Holmes, who owns Holmes Boutique Escape Vacations. a short-term rental management company.
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Holmes, who also owns two short-term rental units of his own, said prior to the restrictions going in, post-secondary students were able to rent units in the commercially-zoned buildings for the duration of the school year and then turn them over to tourists.
“We do have them occupied for eight months to students and the students are getting lovely properties, million-dollar properties, about $1,000 a night each, so it becomes subsidized housing,” Holmes said. “And then for four months they go to the economy, which are tourism dollars.”
However, with those units not allowed to be rented on a short-term basis, Holmes said many are sitting empty.
“For four months they sit vacant. The students don’t need a year-long lease,” Holmes said.
The city has until the end of March to make the official request for an exemption, but even if approved, those relaxed rules would be implemented in November at the earliest.
Conservative MLA for Kelowna-Mission, Gavin Dew, also attended the meeting Wednesday.
He told the group that he has brought forward an amendment to the Short-term Rental Accommodation Act, which he expected to be debated in the legislature in the next week or so.
The amendment has to do with allowing those relaxed regulations in May, instead of November.
“For the province to spend months mulling over to finally make a decision by Nov. 1, by which time we’ve lost another tourism season, is ridiculous,” Dew said.
In an email to Global News, while the ministry of housing and municipal affairs would not say whether it would consider fast-tracking the exemption, it stated, “that period provides hosts and visitors a notice period to adjust to any changes to the rules about where short-term rentals are allowed.”
“They are trying to stranglehold these people again and for what purpose,” said Holmes.
The provincial regulations have restricted short-term rentals to principal residences only, including secondary suites or carriage houses on the property.
Kelowna’s vacancy rate reached 3.8 per cent at the end of 2024.
According to the latest city report, it’s currently estimated at over 5 per cent.
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