Short-term rentals facing crackdown
‘There’s not enough rental housing to keep the city functioning as it should,’ says mayor
Faced with a rental-housing crunch and the country’s lowest vacancy rates, the City of Vancouver is proposing new regulations aimed at curbing short-term rentals — a move it estimates could restore about 1,000 units for longterm renters.
The rules, which also require online rental platforms such as Airbnb or Expedia to only allow listings with valid business licences, could be a litmus test in terms of how these companies operate in Canada.
“Short-term rentals have gobbled up a lot of the long-term rental supply,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday.
“Right now there’s not enough rental housing to keep the city functioning as it should.”
With vacancy rates hovering below one percentage and the popularity of Airbnb — which Robertson said makes up 30 per cent of tourist accommodations, effectively making it the city’s largest hotel — the city said it’s advocating a balanced approach: Protecting long-term rental spaces while allowing some people to earn additional income from their homes.
It proposes a ban on short-term rentals in secondary homes, which would in effect cut out large, commercial hosts. Homeowners and renters would be allowed to rent out part or all of their principal residence, but rentals of secondary suites or laneway homes are prohibited.
Operators are required to get a $49 annual business licence, in addition to a one-time $54 “activation fee.”
Platforms are expected to levy a transaction fee of up to three per cent, to be paid by guests then remitted to the municipal coffers in order to fund enforcement and administration of the new licensing scheme.
The city requires hosts to post a valid business licence number on their postings; it also stipulates that short-term-rental sites only list rentals with valid business licences. That means the city expects the online platforms to take on some of the burden of enforcement, said Karen Sawatzky, a Simon Fraser graduate student who had studied the impact of Airbnb in Vancouver.
“That is key,” she said. “That’s not happening in very many places.”
Airbnb has been reluctant to take on enforcement duties, even going so far as to sue San Francisco when the city passed regulations that would see companies like Airbnb fined for facilitating listings not registered with the city.
But Sawatzky believes Vancouver’s move is a good one. “It’s necessary. It’s a direction municipalities need to go to,” she said, noting that Vancouver is the first major city in Canada to deal with short-term rentals and could, therefore, serve as a model for other cities.
Thorben Wieditz, a researcher with the Toronto-based tenant advocacy coalition Fairbnb, welcomed the proposed push toward more platform accountability.
“If Airbnb actually works with the city and … were made accountable for only listing properties with permits, I think we are in a good position,” said Wieditz.
Canada is “in a better position to establish platform accountability measures that are enforceable because we don’t have these amendment rights,” he said, referring to Airbnb’s legal argument that holding it accountable for content produced by users undermine its First Amendment rights.
In a statement, Alex Dagg, public policy manager for Airbnb, said the company welcomes the city’s move toward regulating home-sharing. The San Francisco-based company declined to answer specific inquiries about Vancouver’s plan, saying it needs to review the city’s report in detail first.
Kathryn Holm, Vancouver’s chief licence officer, said Airbnb has been “very co-operative” to date. “We have talked with them about requiring business licences in their listings, and we are looking to work with them to ensure the business licences posted are actually valid and do some data reconciliation over at our end.”
Vancouver has 5,100 Airbnb hosts, 80 per cent of whom rent out their primary homes, said Airbnb.
The regulations, if adopted, would legalize up to 70 per cent of existing “entire-unit” listings and virtually all “private-room” listings in Vancouver, said the city.
Holm said the city plans to encourage compliance through communication and education, and will focus its crackdowns on large commercial operators. It would keep a registry of all licensed operators in Vancouver, conduct audits to address fraud and either issue $1,000 fines or pursue legal action against violators.
Vancouver’s rules are tougher than proposed measures in Toronto, which allows for short-term rentals of secondary suites. However, Vancouver takes a less restrictive tack than Richmond, which earlier this year voted to ban short-term rentals of less than 30 days unless a homeowner obtains a bed-and-breakfast licence.
If approved at next week’s council meeting, Vancouver’s regulations will take effect April 1, 2018.