Short-term rentals suit specific needs

Re: “City shouldn’t target legal short-term rentals,” comment, Sept. 21. “Not licensed” is not “illegal.” Positive results can be achieved by licensing local full-suite short-term rentals. Allocate taxes to neighbourhood associations, not hotel-lobby Tourism Victoria. It’s a win when neighbourhoods benefit. Ban companies scooping up housing stock and sending profits out of Victoria.

Visitors who seek whole suites have legitimate needs not met by hotels. Local owners using property assets to survive now and in old age are meeting that need.

Need to stay a week with a family member pre- or post-surgery?

Placing a manager for three weeks to upgrade local staff skills?

Need to house artists for a show running several weeks?

City hall thinks a bedroom in someone’s personal space will do just fine.

Need private space with a quiet garden instead of the hotel lobby, bar and ballroom for a celebration of life?

Separated from your child except for two or three weeks a year, where love is a short-term rental, not a Skype call?

City hall thinks a hotel room is good enough.

Victoria does not want you here unless you compromise your needs. You cannot choose your accommodation — city hall knows best.

Officials can afford hundreds of dollars a night in hotels, sending profits to headquarters offshore. Why can’t you? Why would you want to experience something less corporate?

Remember, Victorians, every time you stay in an short-term rental elsewhere — so many of us do — there is someone denied that right by councillors you vote for in your home town. R.D. Tornack Victoria