Common sense needed in Airbnb discussion

Re : “Airbnb businesses create inequities,” “Short-term rentals leave tenants vulnerable,” letters, Sept. 2.

Letter-writers are scathing about Airbnb operators, saying they reduce the available rental pool for Victoria residents. They are painting all short-term rentals with the same brush, and I think this is wrong.

Yes, Victoria has a very low vacancy rate. Might I say, not for the first time. It’s an ongoing issue in this city that attracts people from all over the world. And yes, there are property owners evicting long-term tenants to create commercial Airbnb spaces, but that’s only a portion of the short-term rental market.

We are a retired couple who do not have private pensions. Our savings were in our home, which we sold four years ago when we downsized to a duplex in Victoria. At that time, we purchased a unit in the Janion with the idea of supplementing our retirement with rental income, which we report and pay income tax on.

This unit is less than 300 square feet and is not suitable for longterm accommodation. It is in an area zoned for short-term rentals, and we have been doing Airbnb since May. Now that the high season is over, we have rented the space to a young person at a significantly lower rent. This lower rent is only possible because of the higher summer rental rates.

And speaking of rental rates, our space with full kitchen and insuite laundry has been available for $95 a night throughout the summer — a rate far below what hotels in the centre of the city charge for just a room.

I think that Victoria would be shortsighted to ban Airbnb altogether or restrict it out of existence. If we want to attract visitors to our city, we need to have a range of accommodation and prices. There are many people who want visit here but cannot afford to stay in pricey downtown hotels and eat all their meals in restaurants. Airbnb units such as ours fill that gap.

Yes, there should be some regulation of short-term rentals to prevent speculation by owners operating commercial businesses. This kind of speculation is what is eating into rental availability.

I suggest that, rather than bringing in heavy-handed taxes and complicated restrictions by area, Victoria look at what the City of Seattle is considering. Seattle’s proposal aims to protect housing stock without disturbing the supplemental income that individual homeowners can earn through the sharing platforms such as Airbnb.

The proposed regulations would target commercial users by limiting the number of spaces an individual can rent on a shortterm basis. Hosts could list their primary residence and one other dwelling, but no person could have more than two listings. Limits such as these would motivate multi-unit hosts to move their rentals to long-term leases.

I urge city council to take a look at Seattle’s approach. It makes much more sense to me than imposing ridiculously tight restrictions or high taxes that would prevent people like us from supplementing our low retirement income and at the same time offering longer-term or student accommodation for eight months of the year.

There’s room for common sense in this situation. Joanna Pettit lives in Victoria.