18 Mar 2024 Council meeting Housing

Short-Term Rental Review

Motion

That Council direct Staff to review the “Business Licence Bylaw 2021 No. 7318”; the “Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw 2012 No. 7159”; and, the “Zoning Bylaw 2022 No. 4500”; and present amendments to these bylaws to improve short-term rental compliance and enforcement tools, including increasing the fines from $250 to $500 per infraction, per day.

Minutes, page 7

Sources

Agenda itemCity agenda, whole meeting

Staff reportPage 1

Purpose

To provide Council with an update on the City of Nanaimo’s Short-Term Rental program, the new provincial and federal short-term rental legislation, and proposed regulatory amendments.

Staff report, page 1

Staff recommendation

That Council direct Staff to review the “Business Licence Bylaw 2021 No. 7318”; the “Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw 2012 No. 7159”; and, the “Zoning Bylaw 2022 No. 4500”; and present amendments to these bylaws to improve short-term rental compliance and enforcement tools, including increasing the fines from $250 to $500 per infraction, per day.

Staff report, page 1

DocumentsStaff report about Economic Development, Housing, Land Use & Urban Form

Questions and answers

Councillor Ben Geselbracht
Yes

asked

questions, council? Councilor Gezelbrook. Thanks. Chair through you. Just a staff. So basically the province is going to provide some resources and supports to get more accurate data on the short term rentals and also to be able to monitor. So before we can really do anything, we've got to wait till that comes into play. Is that what I'm

City staff answered

gathering is the browser? Yeah, through the chair to council Gesselbrook. That is correct. There's quite a suite of tools that be made available. When staff came to council when the program was first implemented, these were the kind of tools that. We were hoping to get from the province. And they've actually come forward with it and provided them to municipalities. So now it's, a matter of just having them implement them. They're being rolled out, and so we're just waiting for them to be rolled out to see what effect they're going to have. Great. Thank you. Councilor.

Councillor Erin Hemmens
Yes

asked

Heavens. Thank you. Chair through you to staff under the section complaint violations and enforcement. It's noted that we had 62 complaints since the implementation of the program. Two tickets were issued to one provider. Were those other did we not follow through with ticketing because we were able to pull those other str into compliance. And further. Was it just a matter of those STR operators not being aware of the regulations and the program that the city of Nanaimo had put in place. Mr. Labairs. I'm going to

City staff answered

ask Ms. Davis to come up, Ms. Davidson, but just through the chair. To council him while she's coming up here. Yes, many did come into compliance. Ticketing was not necessary for most, and actually, that's the case for a lot of municipalities that we spoke to. Is, once they're aware of the regulations, they do come into compliance. It's very rare that ticketing is needed, especially per infraction per day. Ms Davidson. How do I turn? You're on. I'm

Councillor Sheryl Armstrong
Yes

asked

Thank you. Anything further. So I do have a couple of questions. You talked about the fact that we're going to have to do more enforcement, which is going to require more staff, and we already know that we're already facing a significant budget. Is the province going to give us any dollars for that, since it's their policy or are we going to? Just another download. Through the chair

City staff answered

to yourself on the chair. We will be responsible, the City of Nye will be responsible for enforcing our regulations and the province will be responsible, forcing their regulations. It is not clear at this time because the enforcement division has not been formed yet. Exactly what their relationship will be, what resources will be available. When those questions are posed to provincial staff, they're not aware exactly how that will function. But they have made it clear that it is our responsibility to regulate our regulations and to do that would still require additional staffing and resources. And as

followed up

a follow up, is there anything we can do to monitor to see how many of these short term rentals do end up back. In the full time rental pool because I've been following this in the states, and it's nowhere near the numbers that were anticipated, and it actually

City staff answered

hurt tourism. Yes. So through the. Chair. The jurisdictions that we did speak to that have used compliance software. Have paid significant cost to use it and actually have not found it to be very accurate. That what they found to be the most accurate having is their own staff spending every day searching. All the different platforms, ensuring there is compliance. The model out there is quite large. It's

followed up

quite complex. My question is. Will we be able to track how many go back into long term rental, not

City staff answered

Short term rental. That would require having to request information, which I don't believe is something that. So we have

followed up

No way of knowing if this regulation is going to be successful, as the intention is to put the short term rentals back into the major rental pool, but we can't track that. Is that correct? From a municipal perspective.

City staff answered

Unless Jeremy has something else you like to add, I'm. Not sure. The province plans to track it somehow. Okay,

followed up

Thank you. Seeing no further people to the mic. Anybody care to move the recommended motion moved by councilor Hammond,

followed up

Seen. None opposed. Motion carries. And I'll return the chair to the mayor.